


Learning Flight

by homewardbound



Category: The Legend of Zelda & Related Fandoms, The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild
Genre: Adventure & Romance, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Amnesia, Bad Puns, Battle Couple, Dragons, M/M, Memory Loss, Mutual Pining, Rivals to Lovers, Secrets, Trauma, chaotic avoidant bloodknight link, pining workaholic tsundebirb revali, so many puns
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-09-01
Updated: 2020-12-06
Packaged: 2021-03-06 22:54:06
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 30,944
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26236708
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/homewardbound/pseuds/homewardbound
Summary: The Great Eagle Bow was too heavy for him to lift. Revali tried it at the same time every day– ten minutes after the visit ended, and five minutes after the tiny Hylian physicians tucked him back into the tiny Hylian bed (they didn’t have hammocks.)In which Revali wakes up 105 years after the Calamity to an adventure beyond anything he's ever known. Link invites himself along.
Relationships: Link & Zelda (Legend of Zelda), Link/Revali (Legend of Zelda)
Comments: 110
Kudos: 273





	1. not four, but three

The Great Eagle Bow was too heavy for him to lift. 

Revali tried it at the same time every day– ten minutes after the visit ended, and five minutes after the tiny Hylian physicians tucked him back into the tiny Hylian bed (they didn’t have hammocks.) He’d have a surge of strength after the sessions, this messed up transfer of power from Zelda to him. She’d come in just shy of shining, cup her hands over the black wound in his side, glow for a bit, and then sag in her regalia. And ten minutes later, it would be time for Revali to sneak out of the blankets and get his fingertips on the bow. Lucky enough to touch. Never enough to draw.

It was the first thing they used to check who he was after they hauled him out of Vah Medoh, shuddering and covered in slime. He’d been delirious by the time they rolled him into the medical wing, and they puzzled over his broken body, disbelieving until Kaneli had said, “hold him there,” and held out that gorgeous piece of carved wood. Sixty-six inches. Fifty-pound draw. Painted deerhorn sights. Revali had lunged at it from the hammock, ruptured his wound in the same instant, and sprawled bleeding onto the ground. 

They’d given it to him after that. The most he’d suffered later on was a featherprint, and that plus the Eagle Bow was confirmation enough for Zelda, who rushed in two days later not even changed from her memorial gown, spattered with mud from the road. “Move aside,” he heard her say, “ _move,_ it’s me,” and she put one golden hand on the seared flesh, and Revali was suddenly doused in sunlight. He looked at her and croaked out a question, and Zelda threw her arms around his trembling frame. 

“A hundred and five years,” she said as the makeup smudged his feathers. “Oh Hylia, please. If we just have to wait– if the other Divine Beasts could open as well–” and she dissolved into sobs. “I don’t care if I’m Queen!”

Revali had managed to pat her a couple of times before sinking back down into an easy delirium. A hundred and five years? What an extraordinary imagination. Then the next morning two chatty Hylian scribes had recounted– in excruciating detail– every single fucking thing he had missed in the past century, and Revali had wanted to be shot all over again. The defeat, the Calamity, Link’s amnesia, Zelda’s Sealing, the five years of rebuilding. The Champions’ deaths. His death. A hundred and five years. Zelda was Queen, Link was castellan, and as always, Revali was unsurpassed in flashy entrances.

His resurrection had single-handedly lurched the annual Champion Memorial festivities into an indeterminate halt. Many reasons for that, said a sympathetic nurse when he asked. First, it wasn’t four fallen Champions anymore, it was three. Second, Revali was in such horrific shape that no one was sure that it would _stay_ three. And third– well. Once he’d woken up, all of Zorana together had tried prying Vah Ruta’s mouth open to save their beloved princess. But the other Divine Beasts stayed sealed. 

Just as well that he’d ruined things, Revali thought afterward. Pomp and circumstance were tolerable at best; outright distasteful for the undeserving. And well now, if the undeserving happened to be Revali himself? The faster they got rid of it– or him– the better. 

Rito Village had evidently thought the same. Kaneli had given him the bow and a blessing, and a warrior named Teba had saluted and thanked him for the Flight Range, but all Revali thought as they carried him to the carriage was: you’re throwing me out, and thank Hylia you beat me to it. The Village had little use for a warrior who couldn’t draw his bow, after all, and absolutely zero use for a Champion who’d woken up alone and plunged them down a diplomatic sinkhole. Good way for him to heal, being near Zelda; good for diplomacy. 

“Your carriage, Master Revali,” said the Hylian attendant as they stuffed him into the gilded coach. They’d packed his bow into a case because he _still_ couldn’t touch it without shaking, and Revali had turned gingerly in the suspended hammock to just the right angle, so he could see Rito Village glittering through the window as the cart trundled away with him inside. Medoh hadn’t even been looking to say good-bye. 

“Master Revali” indeed.

He’d spent most of the ride asleep and in nightmares; missed New Castletown as they drew him in. The room he’d woken up to was like a white toybox, surrounded by paintings that tried to be colorful. There was one wide window, one chair, and one desk, on which they’d placed the red wooden case that held his bow. He went for it again and failed halfway across the room. They found him gasping against the wall. 

“Your body is perfectly capable,” said the doctor, after they’d propped him up in the bed. “Take your time with the bow. Your recovery may depend entirely on the powers of her Sacred Highness.”

“Tell her Sacred Highness they should have left me there,” said Revali.

Because there was no point in bringing him out, after all. He couldn’t even _introduce_ himself to the visitors who came. What: I’m the Champion archer of the Rito, don’t worry about the shaking, oh, and the bow’s display only? He could feel the stares from the nurses, could feel it even from Zelda. Revali didn’t need to introduce himself to her, at least. The first time she came in, he could see that she knew precisely how badly he’d failed himself, the Village, and all of Hyrule along with them. She sat down, peeled away the bindings. Covered her mouth at the sight. 

“Are you waiting for me to beg?” he asked.

“How much do you remember?” Zelda rolled up a sleeve inch by inch. “We never found the chambers in the hearts of the Divine Beasts, but if they’re anything like the Resurrection Shrine–”

“I was shot. And it was dark.”

She put her glowing hand on his side. She kept looking at it as the warmth trickled through his body. “Has Link come to see you yet?”

He had not. 

And he never did come to visit, despite Zelda’s hints otherwise, not even once in the three whole months it took for Revali to finally be able to walk across the room without a faceful of tiled floor. Nevermind flying. Nevermind his bow. The most he could manage was some hops and a glide, and a couple of weeks after the wound had stopped oozing darker blood, a page came into the room and said he’d been summoned to the Hylian Council. Doctors cleared him to go; didn’t bother asking him about the nightmares. 

Revali hobbled through the corridors of the ruined Castle, past the canvassing that draped itself over the worst of the devastation. Parts of the outer walls were held together with only rigging, but there wasn’t any debris left, thankfully, so at least he wouldn’t trip. The interior was sparse– Revali remembered one of the nurses saying that Castletown had sold some of the steel and gold on the walls, to feed the flocks who came to the rebuilding. 

The page led him through the doors to the library. They’d had it rebuilt first, simply and without ornamentation: a staircase of white marble with the Triforce wrought in glass in the ceiling. Many of the shattered bookcases had been restored, and rows of Hylian scribes rustled past each other to copy out tattered books in silent rooms. He followed the page to an oaken door under the stairwell. It opened soundlessly, and Revali stepped through to the meeting room beyond.

Impa, Zelda, and a couple of other Sheikah murmured around a circular table, surrounded by books and scrolls. The light from the tiled window caught Zelda in a pool, and for a moment, between the glow of the sun and her skin, she seemed to melt into the light. Revali cleared his throat– she looked up at his approach, smiled, and was the girl-Queen once more. A Sheikah next to her pulled out a chair.

Revali glanced at the masked faces as he eased into the seat. “Flattered as I am, Your Highness, I suppose this isn’t the usual social greeting.”

“I really prefer ‘Zelda’,” she said, trying to smile, but the atmosphere of the room overcame her. “You know that I wouldn’t interrupt your recovery for any regular reason. There’s something I have to ask.” 

Revali smiled bitterly. “I would never have accepted charity in the first place. State your terms.” 

Zelda didn’t meet his gaze, but Impa gave a little shake and tilted her head forwards, squinted at him from under that massive hat. “Call the Queen’s grace a debt if you wish, Champion Revali. But we do not ask this of you lightly. Another darkness descends.” 

The wound in his side flared, and the golden room went abruptly cold. “Ganon,” said Revali with a dry mouth, and he was in that dark tub again, trembling at red eyes. “Unless your records are mistaken, I thought it was done.” 

“There is a new presence,” said Zelda. She clasped her hands on the desk. “I had a premonition before Ganon’s awakening. Blood moons waxing while I was in the light. My power is now weak enough that I can’t tell when it will next happen, but I feel enough that the lands should be prepared.” 

Revali looked around at the Sheikah: their stillness and their weapons. “Your Highness, forgive me, but I hardly consider myself the proper recipient for this news.”

“Stop that.” Zelda leaned forward with a frown. “I won’t have my dear friend and the chosen Rito Champion speak of himself that way. But even so,” she raised her hand at his protest, “I’d never ask you to reprise your role. It would be– more than a mistake to rely on singular Champions again.” 

Made sense, said the pain in his side. Made a lot of sense when she was the mouthpiece for the new voting Council, and he certainly wouldn’t _mind_ avoiding another century-long defeat sometime soon. “Then why am I even here?” asked Revali.

Zelda shifted. “We wanted to ask you to work with our military, in archery.” 

“No,” said Revali immediately. “I won’t play at being his assistant again, and Hyrule’s greatest knight can marshall his forces perfectly fine without my superior abilities. Just let him save you all over again, and I’ll be happy going back to Rito Village.”

Zelda gave him a pleading look. “Not this time,” she said. “Link can’t be alone. You have to persuade him otherwise.” 

Persuade him otherwise? Revali looked at her with mounting confusion. “I can try convincing him to accept our archery, if that’s what you mean. But it’s entirely aerial. Surely your army won’t sprout wings.”

The Sheikah seemed to collectively sigh. Zelda brushed the hair from her face and took a deep breath. “We don’t have an army.”

“What do you mean, you don’t have an army?” 

“I mean that our last soldiers fell in the Calamity, and the only knight left in Castletown won’t train anyone else,” said Zelda, and she put both hands over her face. “Link is Hyrule’s entire military.” 

* * *

Revali left the meeting wanting to laugh. There were delusions of grandeur, which he knew quite well, and then there were – _delusions of grandeur_. But Zelda had handed him a Royal Order to give to Link, once he’d found him, and apparently the delusion was serious enough for even that. It would certainly clear things up in person, at least. But Revali hesitated before he stepped out of the window.

He didn’t particularly want to see Link, true, but he also didn’t _not_ want to see him either. Small mercy that Link had stayed away during the worst of the illness, because there was only so much that Revali’s withered pride could take. But still. A part of him had hoped, vaguely, for Link to have done something suitably tragic and maudlin like– like– sit at Revali’s bedside and weep with flowers, or something. Talk about all the failed chances they’d had to battle. Or failed chances at friendship. Or maybe just failure, in general. 

That sounded about right. A reunion for the ages. 

He ducked out of the window and let the height take him, glided over New Castletown under the touch of drizzle. Revali had seen it plenty of times before, but every day he discovered a new way that Hyrule’s capital had been destroyed. Scaffolding over the buildings like thick white veils. Tents and merchant stalls sprouting up in the blackened soil. The city itself, still so empty. So, so empty. He’d brushed the Calamity on his way to Medoh, close enough to see the fires, and maybe he preferred it when there was still screaming, then. And not when it was silent.

A shudder, and Revali shook his head to flick away the rain. The weight of his body dragged him down– still exhausted by the memory of death– and Revali let himself glide down to perch on the cobbles. It was an hour of meandering before he spotted a familiar figure, and even in the rain, Revali didn’t need to check to be sure. 

The posture gave it away: even a hundred years later, it was a touch too straight for parade rest, as if both mind and body consciously denied the armor’s weight. Taller, leaner, browner. Soldier’s armor in the marketplace, pure luck he was even outside. The Hylians around him gave a respectful berth. 

Not too many of them would recognize Revali enough to ask, hopefully, but it couldn’t hurt to be cautious. He hopped behind a stall and dusted off his plumage. Just for good measure, Revali picked up a sweet-smelling palmfruit and pretended to inspect it as Link spoke to the merchant about the price of purple mushrooms and blue porgies. 

Timing was key. Revali waited until Link was a moment away from turning around before giving a small cough, and was rewarded with the back of Link’s neck going pale. “I know you don’t remember me,” he said coolly. “But forgive me for thinking that I’d be graced with your presence at least once by my bedside.”

He heard Link let out a long breath before turning around, and Revali was struck by how helpless he looked for a moment: in the rain with countless gazes at his back. “I’m sorry,” he said, and Revali put the palmfruit back in its place. 

“You can talk.” 

“It’s new.” Link glanced with some desperation at the growing crowd. “Can we go somewhere inside?” And Revali followed him to a hidden tavern that served ale, pies, and fat, flaky Hebra salmon, which went down rather nicely when paired with both homesickness and shock. Link waited for Revali to finish eating before speaking again. “Zelda asked you to talk to me.” 

“I wasn’t aware that ‘talk’ was the right term,” said Revali. “But you may recall something about Hyrule’s military,” and he showed Link the Royal Order. 

“Not doing it,” said Link, and pushed it back across the table. 

“Pardon me, hero, but you can’t just _not do it_ ,” said Revali. “You’re leaving Hyrule defenceless on a whim. And speaking of whims, I suppose you just decided _not to talk to me?”_

__

“It’s not a whim,” said Link, pained. “And I don’t remember not talking. I just– look. Look at you. You’re supposed to be healing. You’re supposed to be back at Rito Village.”

“I’m not supposed to do anything, I’m too busy coming back from the dead,” said Revali in a low hiss. “And I’m sorry– but aren’t _you_ supposed to be in charge of defending Hyrule?” 

“I am defending Hyrule. I’m just doing it alone.” 

Revali let the words hang in the air before he spoke. “Link,” he said slowly, “I may be wrong. But unless your memory has completely failed, I hardly need to remind you of what happened the last time you _did it alone_.”

Link stared at his plate. “No one else will get hurt if I do it alone.” 

“Oh Hylia,” said Revali, and neither of them said anything else until they walked out the door, and then Revali took the edge of Link’s bracers and pulled him underneath the soft glow of the tavern lamplight. “Do you remember visiting my home?” he asked through the ache in his chest, and Link shook his head. “Then allow me to enlighten you. Even though there is only one Rito Warrior selected per generation, every single Rito must learn how to make their own bow. Naturally, I was their best– am their best– but think! What if I was the only one? What if they shot me and I was gone?”

“But you’re not gone,” said Link. He drew back, left Revali’s fingers with a feeling of cold metal. “Tell Zelda that, okay? You only just woke up, you’re barely even healed.”

“It’s hardly as bad as you’re making it out to be,” said Revali, because it was worse. The one-time Rito Champion reduced to this wreck with a useless bow on his back, making his case in front of Hyrule’s biggest savior. Revali tamped down on the pain, grew hotter under Link’s stare, because the failure was going to follow him forever, wasn’t it, so– “I’ll just do it myself.”

“What?” said Link. 

“I’ll do it myself,” said Revali again. “As _former_ Champion, it’s the least I can do to live up to this grand title, isn’t it? Save me your pity and your useless words,” and he turned and stalked away, stiffening his gait just enough to make it seem like he was fuming and not like he was too exhausted to fly. Link didn’t follow.

After another hour through the maze of streets, one Gale barely got him up to the window of his room. Revali checked to see no one was looking. Then he fell in, sank to the floor, and cursed his stupid fucking ego. Zelda’s proposal was laughable in the first place (him? Teaching Hylians archery?), but now he’d gone and announced it to the last person who needed to know about this forsaken scheme. Bad enough that he’d been outclassed in the Calamity. Even worse that he’d gone and demanded Link’s entire jurisdiction like some puffed-up chick.

But not as if he couldn’t handle it, right? Revali’s wound flared again, and he pressed the patchwork of scars, groaning. He groped for the pitcher and drank from it, spilled water in a trickle was cooler and lighter than blood. He remembered handling that, at least. Handled it quite well, until the red light flashed and the blood came thickly out. And then waking up in the slime. Delirium. 

He didn’t want to help. What did Hylian matters have to do with him? He’d just woken up. Didn’t he deserve a break– didn’t he want one? And yet there was Link, who so clearly would not move unless he was slapped in the face with it, like a Rito chick who wouldn’t fly unless it was flung off the edge of the roost. Link probably didn’t even need Revali, if he’d really stormed Hyrule Castle alone. Probably despised him. But utter failure that he was, Revali owed Zelda a debt, and Hylia help him, it was going to be a debt for life. 

Revali spent the next few days hunting miserably for information. The Hylian barracks were long gone, said the archivists. Went down so hard that there weren’t even ruins. No weapon prints leftover either, since those had been razed alongside Akkala Citadel. If Revali wanted any hope of training the Hylian rabble, he’d have to find a steady flow of weaponry first, and so there was nothing for him to do but hobble along to the brick-clad iron sector, where smithies belched acrid black smoke into the air. 

“Beautiful quality,” said a blacksmith to the Great Eagle Bow, and Revali felt himself puff a little in pride. But they gave it back to him in the end, because even though they _could_ reconstruct such a model, their skill was in swords, not bows, and was Hylian besides. His best bet in replicating anything was finding a set of traditional soldiers’ gear– and the only ones the scouts saw these days were in the hands of higher-tiered bokoblins and lizalfos, along the Deplian Badlands. “Not that you’d have to worry about them,” said the smith as he puffed away at the bellows. “Leave ‘em all to Master Link.” 

“Yes, Master Link, of course,” said Revali, seething, but as he stood at the window and watched the afternoon drills, the anger broke into an unshakeable dismay. The best soldiers New Castletown had were stable guards who traded fancy clanging for shoddy technique, and it was undeniably, hopelessly true. The Council was right: Link was the only one left.

Revali asked for a horse the next day before his motivation could run dry. Zelda gave him the steed, a map to the Badlands, and appropriate supplies without even meeting with him, but that honestly wasn’t a surprise. After that much healing, Revali would be sick of seeing his face, too. The horse came with a pack, anyways, and there was poultice in the side pocket for the pain in his ribs, plus enough biscuit to last him two weeks and a half. Revali pawed through the bag a bit helplessly. That was it, wasn’t it?

He hadn’t heard of any other Rito travelling on foot before, and he couldn’t think of anything else to bring. Revali’s gaze swept the corners of his empty room. The extra Falcon Bow from the Village; a Duplex from the one merchant stand that sold scavenged goods. So many hand-tied bomb arrows that he’d left the Hylian shopowner in tears. He’d have to pay Zelda back for those later, too. Shoot something, sell it, and pay for a Champion’s life, somehow. 

He set down the traveling bags and curled his fingers over the Great Eagle Bow, testing it out just in case. The shaking was so bad that the bow turned in his grip. Revali clenched until the carved wood bit into his palm, and then let go with a small moan. 

He strapped it onto his back. 

* * *

The guards at the Castletown gates let him pass, less because they recognized him and more because Revali kept his gaze forward like he knew what he was doing. Half a day’s ride would see him at Serenne Stable, since there was still morning light, and then he’d cross into the Badlands proper, find a cache of soldier’s weapons, get back in less than a fortnight, easy. 

Easy until Revali realized that traveling on foot was completely fucking miserable. His feet were too short to reach the Hylian stirrups, and after a couple hours of keeping up the balancing act, he had to hop off and knot them into a proper length. Then the horse wouldn’t listen when he got back on top of it, just whickered when he jerked the reins and nearly threw him at least twice, and the dumb animal looked like it was considering thrice. And joy of joys, Hylian saddles turned out to have a penchant for rubbing sores into places he didn’t even _know_ could have sores, and pity the flightless, said Hylia. For they are the weak.

Twelve hours later, Revali almost keeled over in relief when Serenne Stable came glowingly into view. Without speaking, he threw the reins at a bewildered stablehand, limped over to the cooking pot, and coaxed some tiny mushrooms into the fire. They were just beginning to toast when there was the rolling sound of hooves, and a splash of familiar blue.

“I can’t believe this,” Link said as his horse breathed huge gouts of mist into the air. “Zelda’s going to skin us both.”

“Her Highness can’t very well skin me if I’m here with her permission,” said Revali, with growing outrage. “What are you doing here? You need to go back, you’re the only marginally capable soldier they have!”

Link stared at him. “I’m not going back. This is the first time I’ve been in the wild for at least a year, they’ve got a signal if they need it. _You’re_ the one going back.” 

“ _I’m_ not going back, I have to find soldiers’ weapons for the smiths to copy since you couldn’t be bothered to do your job,” and Link sputtered, and would you look at that– a hundred years had given him some real emotions, too.

There was a silence as Link’s jaw worked, and then he snapped his reins and swung expertly off the horse. “Fine,” he said. “I’ll go with you, okay, and she can skin us both when we get back. Where are you heading– do you even know?” 

“I _suppose_ I was considering the West Deplian Badlands,” said Revali. He checked the map and gave a delicate ruffle. “Eldin Skeleton. Have you ever been?”

“Yeah, nice sunset,” Link waved at the fire. “Your mushrooms are burning.” 

They were closer to charred, actually, but Revali wasn’t about to quibble. He prodded the mushrooms and glanced at Link’s face lit gold by the flames. Most of the softness he remembered had been hammered away, leaving steel everywhere except for the mouth. “Why come after me in the first place?” Revali asked.

Link sighed. “Why do I do anything? Call it a pull.” He stroked the horse's mane. “We’re leaving in the morning, so sleep early. Should make good time while we can.” And he turned around without another glance to lead the beast away. 

Not enough of Revali had survived the trip to complain, and he watched Link walk to the stables with an exhausted and bemused silence. Hijacking this particular misadventure certainly wasn't a substitute for weeping at his bedside, but having Hyrule’s greatest knight come after Revali in person was– somewhat flattering. Revali didn’t _need_ a guide, of course. Just maybe company. To keep things fresh. 

Once the mushrooms were thoroughly burnt, Revali ate them, crunching, and applied the thick, cool poultice to his side. No black blood tonight: a good sign. The stars came glittering into the sky as he winced and wrapped on fresh bandages, and it was long dark before Revali made his way into the soft, scratchy blankets of the stable bed. 

He sighed. He would try the bow again before morning.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> me: wow revali's got some incredible characterization  
> me:  
> me: I'm going to break him apart and see what he's made of
> 
> Also, I desperately need a beta :) please comment if you're interested.


	2. a sputtering gale

Revali came limping back from practice at dawn to find Link in proper travelling gear, all leather and cloaks, printing out a letter on the stable’s single round desk. There was a bowl of rice and meat next to him that still smelled warm, and he nodded at Revali’s approach but did not get up. “It’s to Zelda,” he said. “We’re not gonna be at another stable for a while. I just wanted to let her know you were with me.” 

“Exchanging a heartfelt correspondence, are we? I wouldn’t have thought that you and Her Highness would get along.”

“Mhm.” Link folded the letter into smaller rectangles. “Got into the habit of addressing my reports to her whenever I was out somewhere. Things changed a bit, after, I mean, after the–” and a silence fell over them both.

“Naturally,” Revali said. He leaned on the table, aching. Then Link’s glance slid over to the fresh mat of bandages, and Revali shifted his weight, folded his wings, and took a few slow steps away from the table. Casual. “Here’s a brilliant idea. Why don’t you go post your little letter and we stop wasting time?” 

Link stood up immediately. “Great. I’ll just– pay for this. The food’s yours, I made too much,” and he strode out the stable door, fumbling an envelope out of his pocket. 

Revali waited a moment to make sure he was properly alone. Then nibbled a piece of meat. Perfect amount of salt. He was halfway through the bowl before he realized what he was doing, so the whole thing went down, why not, and by the time Link got back, Revali had placed the bowl on the ground and unfurled the map, dignity still intact. 

He’d asked a couple of scouts where the known monster nests were. The ones they pointed out would lead them across the border of the Typhlo Ruins and back around Eldin Volcano. Revali thought he’d done a good job explaining because of all the nice arrows and circles, but after a moment of listening, Link motioned for the pen. “You’re missing a few of the ones here,” he drew some tiny crosses, “here, and also here. They’re under the cliffs, away from the roads.” 

“Don’t tell me you’re just guessing,” said Revali. There were at least fifteen more crosses on the map. 

Link twisted the pen closed. “Nope. They’ve been there since I was in the wilds. It’s good we can clear them out properly now. Have you ever seen a gold bokoblin? They’re new.”

“Haven’t the privilege. Tougher by a little, I suppose?” 

“Kind of by a lot.” 

“I thought someone like you wouldn’t be bothered,” Revali said. 

“Mhm.” Link rolled the map into a rod. “We’ll be fine,” and he picked up the bowl from the ground.

They left with rain shimmering over the fields. Link had brought far more than him: three brown packs on the saddle, one full and the other two half-full. There was a holster, too, with a cover on it, and the sword was on his back as it always was. Revali looked at his own tiny saddlebag and felt like hiding it, then was furious at himself for feeling like hiding it. 

Stolid was the silence, and miserably wet. They clopped along next to each other, and for a while Revali tried to forget about the rain and the agony of horseback riding and how Link wasn’t talking again. He tried to think about the land. How clean the grass looked when washed with rain, how good the wet earth smelled without the choke of ash. But over and over, his gaze kept washing over the hazy Hebra mountain range, and its blur of wintering pines. Their bark would be coming off by now, he knew. Sweet and white like apples. 

The whole line of them peeled like that: sweet and white as he raced past them in that final sprint– past the Guardian corpses still piled up in hills; over the great swathes of burning forest that were now just empty fields; all the way through the needles of the pines, to reach the place where he had fallen. Where they had fallen. All four of them in beautiful places, if only he’d look up from the road. 

He couldn’t take it: he had to talk. 

“How,” Revali started, and Link looked up. “How–” he couldn’t get it out. “The soldiers.” No, wrong. He couldn’t do it. Revali stared at the reins. “The horses.” Yes. He hated horses. “Horse-back riding is an atrocious practice. I was always of the opinion that flying was the superior mode of transportation, but I’ve come, steadily, to harbor genuine pity for you and your four-legged creatures, because _how_ can you ever learn to stand it.” 

“Hm,” Link said. “You’ll never guess, but I can’t remember,” and he actually started smiling. “Are you sure you got it all out?” 

“No,” Revali said. “This pace is atrocious.” 

“We could speed it up.”

“How considerate. I refuse.” 

“Okay,” and Link smiled even more. The audacity. “We’ll probably be going off the road a lot, so not everything’s gonna be as smooth as it is now. Though of course,” he added, “I’m sure it won’t bother you.” 

Revali tried to ruffle himself; shake off a bit of the cold and wet. “Unbelievable," he said. "Why shouldn’t it bother _you_ , either? I suppose they carry you around in gilded coaches everywhere, if you even leave the castle at all.” 

“They’ve tried,” Link said.

Revali wiped the water from his face. “They’ve tried _?_ ”

“They haven’t caught me yet.”

“Are you implying that you ran?”

Link shrugged. “I’m faster than the carriages with the right kind of mushrooms,” he said, and Revali slowed his horse to a halt, still dripping. 

“Perhaps I would like a moment,” he said, and sat there as Link watched with a hint of a smile that only made it worse. What had the archives said, exactly? The Hero of Hyrule overcame his amnesia to assist the Sacred Queen in her victory. With the Divine Beasts, of course. But the word– overcame?

This wasn’t ‘overcame.’ Revali had been under the impression that Link was the same dour, cold knight from before, except the Shrine had just gone at his mind with a pair of scissors. Nothing had suggested otherwise; he’d almost expected the savior complex. But when the Hero of Hyrule nodded as if he understood why someone might need time to consider the image of him sprinting from pursuing carriages, Revali realized that Link was looking for a reaction.

“It appears that the talking isn’t the only thing that’s new about you,” he said. 

“Mhm. I’ve heard that before.” 

“From the Queen and Impa, plus–” Revali waved– “whoever else is still around?” 

“Yeah. Them.” Link said, and he squeezed the water from his cloak; waited for Revali to speak.

“You aren’t him at all.”

“Nope. Is that okay with you?” 

Revali felt funny– Link had flicked the water from his hood and was gazing at him in the rain, a blue gaze, and _was_ it okay with him, that the Shrine had apparently used a sledgehammer instead of scissors? That there was one more person who didn’t remember the things around them, like the hills of Guardians and the fields of forests, and the four cliffs that Revali’s perfect eyesight couldn’t see? Is that okay with you?

“It’s acceptable, I suppose,” he said. 

Link thought for a moment and nodded. “Thanks.”

* * *

The silence eased itself as the rain drizzled away. Link started patting his horse every now and then, humming, and Revali focused on how to hold the reins more loosely. It was easier not to look at the land around them if he kept his gaze down; easier when he focused on the monster nests tomorrow, which were all minor. Which meant, Revali thought as they set up the night’s campfire, that he would have _time_. 

He would have time, finally, to try and get the Gale back up to what it used to be. There was still pain, yes, but he was out of the medical _wing_ (very funny); he could practice, he could shoot. And even though his bow still trembled, Revali wasn’t a Champion because he wept about things. He was a Champion because King Rhoam had a taste for titles, and also because Revali had been— was still— the best. Getting there took effort then; getting back would take effort now. 

He uncapped the bottle of polish, checked the Falcon’s taut bowstring against the orange campfire glow. Training had to be discreet. That savior streak was as long as bokoblins were dumb– “no one else gets hurt,” honestly – and if Link saw the Gale as it was now, in combat? If Revali survived the shame, he certainly wouldn’t survive Zelda looking at him and covering her mouth again. 

So. No Gale, no advanced archery, and definitely no trembling Eagle Bow _ever_ when Link was around. Not until it was all flawless. 

Revali cleared his throat. “I suppose we’ll encounter the first group tomorrow,” he said, and Link looked up from the mess of chopped herbs. His hands were a fragrant green, and a fish lay glittering next to him. Sometime earlier, he’d hopped into a river and caught it by hand. Revali accepted this with aplomb. “Have you considered any tactics, hero, or must I do all the work?”

“Tactics?” Link asked. 

“Yes. Approach. Stratagem. Whatever you Hylians use to clear the monster nests in your vicinity.” 

“Well,” Link said, lining up the stalks. “Since you can fly, you can shoot arrows from above and I’ll just swing at them.” 

Revali said, “quite entertaining, yes, but do concentrate,” and then Link said, “what, no, I’m serious,” and they stared at each other, Link’s hands dripping green stuff and Revali’s frozen around the polishing cloth and his bow. 

“Don’t tell me,” Revali said. “Surely you remember at least _something_ about your knight’s training.”

“I remember enough.” 

Enough to swing a pointed metal stick, apparently. “If you don’t mind explaining this to me,” Revali said, trying to be gentle, “I am, perhaps, a little curious as to _how_ you’re supposed to train an army when your entire memory consists of the last five years, one of which you spent chasing _bears_.” 

“Okay,” Link said, and put the knife down. “It was necessary, all right? Ask Zelda, it’s in the Royal Archives, who knows why, I think the people like reading about it. And yes, thanks, that’s another really good reason why I’m not gonna do it,” and he started chopping the herbs again. “Like I said. We’ll be fine.”

“We’ll be fine?” Revali hissed, leaning forward. “You barely have any concept of how to command an approach. Can you even attack a nest? Or hold that knife?” 

“I can _definitely_ use this knife. Probably better than you.”

“Certainly not.” 

“Certainly can.” 

Revali ruffled himself, successfully this time. “A Rito Warrior is proficient in the arts of swordplay, strategy, _and_ archery, as I’m sure you don’t remember. I merely happen to excel at the greatest out of the three. You probably haven’t even handled a proper Rito bow before.” 

“Like that’s hard,” Link said. “You just need a firmer grip, don’t you?” and Revali went cold, because Link knew about the Great Eagle Bow, how? Revali had left it alone the entire day, he’d made sure, until he noticed how Link looked a little like he wanted to stab himself with the knife. And then Revali thought about the _other_ meaning of the sentence, oh no, and decided that he’d help with the stabbing, too. 

“Don’t ever say those words again.” 

“Yeah,” said Link. He was bright red. “Um. Sorry.” 

“I will cook the fish,” Revali said. 

“Great,” Link said, and began to chop the pile of leaves so furiously that they weren’t even slivers anymore, just green mush, and ten minutes of ignoring each other later, they settled down to a dinner of burnt fish. It was adequate, but significantly herbier than usual. There was an agreement that they’d go about the monster nests separately, and at around seven o’clock, Link left for more scouting, and Revali went to hunt for somewhere hidden but open to the sky. 

* * *

He tried the Gale five times. 

All five tries only reached halfway up to the tips of the pines, and all five sent him spinning into the grass and holding his side, gasping. Barely enough for the smallest of swoops, dives, and rolls, if he was being honest, and he could very well forget about corkscrews entirely. It was simply a matter of power and height. 

Revali heaved himself up from the crush of grass, pulled the map from his pocket to check. The monster nests were almost exclusively towers and skulls. The Gale would be critical for pressing the advantage. Especially since Link was about to charge in head-on.

Revali folded the map away, lay down aching again. First the Gale, and now the Hero, whom he’d need to look after for the sake of this imbecilic kingdom. He’d have to start seriously considering Rito tactics as well– he’d boasted to Link, of course, but the truth was that thanks to the Gale, Revali hadn’t exactly followed his mentor’s advice later on either. He memorized it all since it was required, but tactics? Reach a certain velocity with bomb arrows and the targets would be ash no matter what. 

The nightmares politely disagreed.

Two more sputtering half-Gales later– Gales, really, should be Revali’s Pathetic Breeze by now– his muscles finally gave out, and he dragged himself back to camp, hating himself for quitting before the sun had come up, but also running through the long-forgotten Rito formations in his head just in case. Ambushes. Feigned retreats. Dive-bombs. Too many, and none of which Link could follow because he _couldn’t fly_. 

Revali got up the next morning ready to sign Link’s death warrant for three whole monster nests. They started off by branching off into miserable treks through thickets and smaller ruins, going in separately as decided. And even though Revali had wanted to use his Gale– try it out under pressure for the first time– they were always high enough over the nests for him to see that it was useless.

All three minor nests were empty of both monsters and weaponry, which left them standing next to the cold ashes together, stiff with frustration. Link with his bizarre little skull hat; Revali with his dashed hopes of useful practice.

“Some travellers probably got lucky,” Link said. He’d climbed onto the platform of the third nest after their inspection, and was perched on one of the numerous planks that fanned crudely out from the tree trunk. 

Revali closed the lid of yet another empty chest tucked by the gnarled roots, and smoothed down his feathers. “The nests aren’t nearly close enough to the roads. And you know, there is _quite_ the thin line between luck and abject stupidity.”

“Thanks,” Link said. 

“I didn’t specify who was toeing that line, but very well, be my guest.” 

“Ugh. I know I put them on the map, okay? We’ll find some soon.” 

Revali hummed. “Eager to return, are we?” 

“No, actually," Link said, leaning back on his hands. "We can stay here for as long as necessary,” and thank Hylia they agreed on some things at least.

For all the extra travelling the various hidden nests forced on them, it did mean camping at different spots. The trees and cliffs that monsters favored made for good places to hide, and Revali soon learned that Link would always leave camp to scout at seven o’clock and be back by the next morning. He did leave strangely– climbing up trees, over boulders, into rivers– but it was regular, so Revali accepted it (again) and took the chance to find new training areas every time they stopped. Anywhere open to the sky worked; anywhere far enough from camp. 

Avoiding Link meant starting even earlier than his sessions in the Village. On the first day he woke up in the dark, splashing water on his face to shock away the sleep. He practiced the Gale before Link woke, smeared on the medicine afterwards. On the second day he clawed himself out of the tent early enough to fit in archery with the Falcon Bow, leaving time for the Gale besides. He refused Link’s dinner the next evening, and on the third day hunger woke him even earlier again. 

Revali had just crouched and put his hands down by a hidden copse of oaks, ready to try the sputtering Gale for the fourth consecutive time, when Link dropped into the clearing from a branch far above. “Do you want breakfast?” he asked, as Revali strangled the move halfway through. 

“No,” Revali said. Oh no. He was still on all fours. A glance at the grass. Mushrooms. He moved his hands in small circles. “I was looking for mushrooms.” 

“There’s some in front of you,” Link said, pointing, and Revali felt like someone had lit a match under his chin and slowly sent his face up in flames. His feathers started to puff. 

“I’m allergic to this kind.” 

Link pursed his mouth. “Okay. I didn’t really want to ask this. But you didn’t have dinner last night, and I don’t know if Rito are comfortable with–? Um. So I used to travel a lot, and everyone has different customs, and, uh–”

Revali stared at him. “Yes?”

“I have some eggs,” Link said finally. He held them up. “Can you eat them?” 

“Can I eat them,” Revali said. 

“Yeah. Okay, look, I’m really sorry.” Link flapped a hand at the trees. “I can put them back. The parents won’t even notice.” 

The eggs were white. Revali looked at them, and then at Link’s desperate face. “The Rito only cannibalize on weekends,” he said. “Now go away.”

“I’m okay with that,” Link said a bit weakly, and he left. Revali stayed there for a moment, still on all fours, and then slowly lowered his forehead to the ground. After a little while, the smell of frying eggs drifted into the clearing. Revali tried the Gale again. It failed. 

Link did try to make up for it, to his credit. The campfire dinner that night was an astonishingly delicious mix of herbs and lamb, very free of eggs, and Revali _could_ have told him it was a joke, but maybe he really wanted to savor Link’s abject embarrassment a bit longer, which was a nice distraction from Revali’s own. There was no getting a rise out of Link for at least another day, anyways: he was always silent around the late-evening campfire, when they had nothing to do but sit and wait for each other to leave. 

So when Link asked, “Hey, can I talk with you about something?” Revali glanced up from the polish and his bow. Link was holding a branch by the very end, prodding the coals with the greenish twigs. In the fire the wood was hickory, and Revali knew the sweet smoke would be on his feathers until morning. He tilted his head, considering. 

“Is this about the eggs?”

Link went red again. “Oh no. No, I’m so sorry. It’s not.” 

“I’m somewhat less inclined towards forgiveness,” Revali said, after he’d drawn out the silence long enough for Link to really squirm. Hylian blushes at least were something else– slightly more flattering than turning into a massive puffball. But Link seemed like he really did want to say something, so Revali gestured, magnanimous. “Go on, then. Make this easier for yourself.”

“Um, okay. Weird question, but– do you ever remember your dreams?”

“Hm. Not quite,” Revali said. Nightmares weren’t dreams; more like reality, when he woke up with his side aching all the way through. “Though I can’t imagine why you’d want to know.”

“Just wondering. I have them.”

“The Hero of Hyrule having dreams? Imagine that.”

“Yeah, sure.” Link put out his hand. “Pass me one?” Revali gave him a log, and Link slid it into the center of the fire, where the flames were either gold or white. “I remember mine. I keep wishing I could do something in them.”

“They’re dreams, you know.” 

“Well,” Link said. “I just mean I wanted to talk about it.”

Revali looked up at the hanging stars. Already seven o’clock, and the night came earlier and earlier. Link would leave soon, and then the hunt for a spot would start, and then the new nests would come again. “I’ll have to disappoint you, then. I’m hardly the type to be sympathetic.”

“It’s okay.” 

“Is it, now.” 

“Yeah, it’s fine, really,” Link said, and stood up across the campfire, the bits of flame unfurling between them. “Revali. I just have to say something.”

Say something. Revali thumbed the small black cap, running his finger around the ridges. He should be sincere; he should drop the pretense. The icy fragrance of the polish came drifting up, and it was like snow, or like pines and sweet apples. “Well,” he said. “If you like the sound of your voice that much.”

“Yeah. Like I said, it’s new.” 

Revali waited. 

“Okay.” Link said. Another, longer pause. “The first major nest is tomorrow. So just– be careful.” And he shoved his branch into the flames and got up in a single motion. 

Revali watched the branch burn. He held the words in his chest; breathed out as he let them go. “Isn’t it past time for you to leave?” 

“Yeah,” Link said. "Just about." 

* * *

That odd tension was still between them, after Revali got back to camp. Link nodded from his horse, quiet once again, and they set off without really talking to each other as they’d somehow gotten used to. But Link’s mood did seem to pick up once they were moving, and it was contagious– Revali could pay attention to the little humming noises, and not to how he was too exhausted from his training to sit upright on the horse, or how the Great Eagle Bow knocked against his shoulderblades. 

“Is the horse all right today?” Link asked at last. He’d taken off his outer cloak, and the clouds had just cleared. Sunlight filtered with thin warmth onto them, and into the grove of fresh young trees beyond.

Revali snorted. “I’m beholden to it.”

“Ah, poor you. They’re great animals.” Link patted the horse’s neck, stopped and frowned a bit. “Actually, now that I think about it– we should start practicing with them more. It helps to be familiar with their speed, their responses, and so on.” 

“Don’t belabor the obvious,” Revali said, and don’t make me practice with horses. 

“Mhm, right. Hey, are you bored?”

“With this conversation? Yes.” 

Link smiled with teeth. “Perfect,” and before Revali could make sense of that, Link yelled and spurred his horse. A shivering neigh split the air, and as Link leaned forward, the horse broke through its shyness and went at full-tilt, the hoofbeats pounding down into bursts of yellow dust. It was a canter, then a gallop, and as horse and rider disappeared down the turn ahead, Link might actually have been beaming. Revali watched with unspeakable dismay. 

“Giddyup,” he tried, but his horse was already pawing, and one small shake of the reins was enough to coax the trot forward. He tried not to stand in the beginning, first because it was indecorous and second because he _wasn’t_ going to copy Link, but he just kept bouncing along the saddle as the horse picked up speed, ow, and that led to an especially peculiar balancing act on the stirrups while he careened through the route on the right, chasing the roll of hooves. And then the turn. 

Link was unloading his pack on the side of the road, under some trees. Revali glimpsed him as the horse charged past. 

A good quarter-mile later, Revali gave up on going backwards, just hopped off the horse with whatever modicum of self-respect he had left. By the time he’d picked his way back, the spread of supplies was more of a deranged picnic: one horned animal skull, three jars of mushrooms, two elixir bottles, one Lizalfo boomerang, one travelling tunic. Link was pulling on a shirt with a red eye, and Revali saw without looking that the scars had carved their way into Link’s body, too. There was a pendant around his neck. 

“What exactly happened to you?” Revali asked. 

“Glad you didn’t hit a tree,” Link said, stuffing the ends of the shirt into his trousers. “You were bored, right? I’m also bored. First major nest of the road, surprise, I’ll race you,” and he strapped the boomerang to his hip and the skull around his head, and took into the woods at a run. 

You’re clearly unwell in the head, Revali thought, and fumbled for the map. His notes said moblins: murderous home in the woods. Not worth a tactical approach anyways. Small chance they’d have any gear, too, but now he was here and Link was there, and Revali might’ve let him get ahead in some certain things, like maybe Calamity Ganon, and it might’ve been just a moblin nest, very well, but Link was absolutely not going to get ahead in _this_. 

Revali put his hands to the ground and ignored the twinge in his side. The shuddering gust howled, swept him up, and there was a tiny spark of triumph even when he knew the angle was all wrong. He was barely past the canopy of leaves before the wind began to fail. “Sweet Hylia,” he muttered, just a little more wouldn’t hurt, and as he shoved past the pain, someone up there with a sick sense of humor must have been all ears.

A stray breeze caught his tail and sent him flipping diagonally across the trees. Branches tore past his feathers, and as Revali hissed and wrenched himself the right way up, something in his side ripped wide open. But he was far enough over the moblins (far enough past Link,) and far enough at last to reach his bow, but no. Falcon, not Eagle. Shift. Arrow. Nock. Draw, pain, draw harder– 

The lookout tower was empty. 

All the tension that held him together collapsed at once, and Revali went down like a puppet with cut strings. Empty. He stumbled, dragged himself to a chest that creaked as he curled over it. He reached into his vest. It was already wet from the inside. A press, and his whole hand came out red. 

Revali stared at it. “Oh, fuck me.”

It took three minutes of checking that the blood hadn’t soaked through before his skin started to crawl with pain. The chest clicked open in the silence – nothing, of course – and Revali propped himself onto a nearby wall, pressing his back against the swathe of cold stone. It was slightly damp; he smeared his hand over it to wipe off the blood.

He couldn’t think about this. Not right now. Link would be here in half a breath, and they’d have to talk about other things. Like the camp. The camp was empty again, of fucking course it was. He hadn’t seen any fires from the distance, what did he even use his perfect eyesight for anyways, and Revali began to pick the leaves from his feathers in small, slow movements, trembling. 

The leaves were almost gone, taking some feathers along with them, when Link finally flipped over the wall opposite. “Empty again, huh. You win this time,” Link said, holstering the boomerang. He waited for a reply, and the air was like a glacier between them. 

“There was hardly any doubt.” Don’t notice.

“Okay,” Link said, and he began to circle the camp’s borders, picking up pieces of bone and puzzling at them. He left the ashes in the center for last, and sunlight clung to the scabbard as Link crouched down before the dead fire. Carefully, he drew his fingers through its dirt. “The tracks are old,” he said with a tinge of confusion. “I’ve never seen a major one empty before.” 

“Are they not usually?” Revali asked. He adjusted his lean, and the smell of blood almost made him gag. There was the smell of something else, too, darker and congealing underneath. Don’t notice.

“Not if I can help it.” Link straightened up, paused. He looked around again. “I mean, this kind of clean sweep takes a little more than traveller’s luck. There’s no weapons again. Did you check that chest?” 

“Wooden shield. Broken.” 

“I’m sure the smithies can work something out,” Link said. He unstrapped his skull hat. “We can go back with it, if you want, show it off.” 

“How amusing. Why don’t we move on.” Don’t notice. Don’t notice. 

“Um, okay. Did you fly to get here?”

“Just go get the horses.”

* * *

The rest of the day slid by with no other camps to be found. Revali changed the bandages behind a tree. He tried not to hold his side too obviously on the road, but that meant throwing control of the horse– it bucked him one more time, and Link must have seen his face because he promptly forced a swap. And even though the red behemoth he was perched on somehow managed to look disappointed about it, there wasn’t enough left in Revali to complain. So he just took it. 

They made the night’s camp on a hill near the Hebra, overlooking a bridge that showed him the way back home. Follow it along the left and he’d be at the Village in half a day, Medoh as his marker with her wings stretched free. But how long would it take now, he wondered, when she was sleeping on the cliffs. She’d swallowed him then as the others lay swallowed now, and they were all on the cliffs except him, curled together and sleeping as he covered the blood on his side.

After puttering around in the offish silence, Link mumbled something about scouting and left for a cluster of rocks opposite. No campfire talks tonight. And besides, if Link had stayed a little longer, Revali might just have said something like “thank you for the food.” But his voice was quiet and Link was far, so in the end Revali just crawled into the tent of waterproofed leather, and shrugged off his vest to check the wound. 

The bandage took a bit of skin as it peeled off. A well of dark blood came dribbling out, and he pressed over and over, waiting for it to politely stop. Slowly the flow ebbed, and Revali shook the little bottle of poultice he’d snuck from the saddlebag and uncorked it. Three fingers worth of cold white gel went onto featherless skin, and he felt the scars radiating out from the center like flower petals, and then the ruptured middle. 

The blood had a tinge of black. Two more dabs of poultice, extra tape for the bandages. He hadn’t seen that color in half a year. The plastering worked its way around his ribs, and Revali pulled it tighter because it always came loose. But that was how it was, wasn’t it? He’d told the nurses to pack less medicine than he could carry, and when they packed more anyways he threw it out. But he wasn’t going back, of course. And there would be combat, undoubtedly. There was only so long it could last. 

He sat under the tent, cross-legged, and began to clean his braids. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow the response to the first chapter... I'm so grateful you guys. Many thanks to my 2 wonderful betas, rynliadon and SarcasticMudkip! updates from now on should be every 2 weeks unless otherwise specified, all concrit and reviews welcomed. get ready for some of link's POV next chapter because shit's about to get a little more interesting.
> 
> P.S. the pines in Revali's memories are based on ponderosa pines, native to western USA with a very distinct apple/vanilla/turpentine smell :)


	3. warm and white

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> in which we take a closer look at this universe's link, plus a slightly altered narrative style. he ain't perfect but neither is our birb– and isn't that what romance is all about?

Castletown slept in a constellation of orange lanterns, and even in the night, he could hear the rasp of saws. Link adjusted his pace. The rim of the reservoir was narrow but angular, and habit alone could guide him safely through. He took the chalk from his pouch as the wall loomed up before him, and scuffed his hands together in bursts of dusty clouds. A flick of the hood over his face, a touch of fingertips to the brick, and he climbed, silent, past the sentries on the left and right. 

The window was at a difficult angle. He picked the shape out and lifted himself into it, stamping the ledge with fingerprints of white. One moment was enough to catch his breath. Across one wall of the room hung a long line of salvaged weapons – boomerangs, scythes, and crushers, all polished to the wickedest gleam. Some of these he touched longingly, before passing the clean white sheets to unburden the stand in the corner. 

He worked from bottom to top. Greaves, breastplate, bracers. Helmet under his arm, too round, and he hooked off his soft shoes and held them, then stepped into the boots of steel. A twist, the cold brass of the doorknob clicked, and the knight went clanking down the halls.  `

The door to the labs was open. Two turns later, in a room hidden behind a bookcase, he came upon a small egg-like Guardian scout: dismembered and chirping, and everything in the room was washed blue except her. She looked up from a stack of notebooks, and he knelt down with the armor all around him, and presented the Sheikah Slate to her with both hands.

“Your Sacred Highness.” 

She went around the table and took it. “Your report, knight.” 

“We’ve made it halfway to the border of the Badlands. First major monster nest on the road was empty, the written report was filed with Council a week ago. Champion Revali remains unharmed. End report.” 

She considered him. “Very well. Follow me, please, and bring the scout,” and she went out into the corridors, dipping her head at the servants who passed. With the scout and helmet both wedged in his arms, he could only nod. They went through a wing and three sets of doors, and after the last one swung open, a stone courtyard rolled out before them, Castletown shining beneath the ring of battlements. He set the scout on the cobblestones and waited with his arms behind his back. 

She checked his face. He nodded– no one else nearby–and she smiled. “At ease, Link. You’re quite tense tonight.” 

Link grimaced and rolled his shoulders. “Hah, yeah. Sorry I’m late. Some of those monks, I swear.” 

Zelda waved one shimmering hand. “Nothing to apologize for. But just imagine being a monk, and waiting that long only to be blasphemed by the hero of destiny. My my,” she tsked, and tapped a quick pattern on the screen.

The egg Guardian whirred to life, and Link’s mouth filled with the taste of ozone. The air in all the combat shrines had been shot through with that taste, and as Zelda chattered idly next to him, Link picked out a dozen different weaknesses as the Guardian scuttled along. The delicate spiderish legs, the teetering joints and body, the eye whose bulge he could crush. 

They should’ve renamed them back in the beginning, he thought. Zelda had insisted on the redesign because she loved them (loved this one) and because they needed trust. It was all about building trust, because without trust, nothing would hold. Trust in them, trust in Castletown, trust in the machines that had guarded nothing but malice and memory. Five years of careful cultivation, all shattered in one day. 

The front-left leg had a loose screw. Tick. Tick. Tick. He could crush it right now, right now, right under his feet. Link opened his clenched fist and breathed out, long and slow. She caught the sound. Glanced at him. 

“It’s been a long day,” Link said. 

“Hm, I thought as much.” She tapped again and the Guardian beeped. “Are you all right?” 

“I’m fine.” 

She sighed but didn’t pursue his tone. “Is it Revali again?”

Link shook his head, because wow, that was another matter entirely. They’d passed the last trees of the journey a few days ago, and as they’d brushed the steep red rock of Eldin, Revali had looked worse and worse. He woke up, got on the horse, and didn’t really say anything apart from what was necessary, and Link had lost count of the times he’d secretly slowed the pace. 

Then there were the nests. He’d said that it was nothing, but the old survivor’s instinct buried in his brain felt that they shouldn’t go on. Still, wasn’t that his job? To swallow that feeling and go on? Courage, Link. Never forgotten. An instinct wasn’t enough to merit a Council hearing, anyways, and there were plenty of other things to worry about.

Link told himself to start small. “He still won’t talk to me about what happened.”

“You’ve tried again?”

“Shuts me down like a trap.” 

“Peculiar.” Zelda frowned. “I really thought he would’ve liked the chance to compete with you.” 

“Yeah, he kind of makes up for it in everything else,” Link said, because Revali had somehow turned the size of their waterbags into an argument the other day, and Hylia, “he’s so  _ impatient _ sometimes, I wanna–” and Link made a throttling motion. 

“Some things don’t change,” she laughed and nudged him as he tried to bat her away. “It’s who he is.”

“Spare me,” he said, but then she touched his arm, and Link closed his eyes to the inevitable turn of the conversation. 

“You have to tell him,” she said. 

Link took her hand off gently, and went to the crenels of the battlements. His armor grated against the rough-hewn stone as he leaned to gaze out at five years’ worth of tears and sleep. Hum of ovens, buzz of saws. But the tents at the outer ring were quieter, he knew, because those were the ones who didn’t yet have houses like the rest, and would look longingly at all the different-colored roofs, spread before the castle like a quilt.

She followed him, and together their gazes went to the three divine prisons that lay under the shroud of night. “I just need time,” Link said. “I swear that’s all I want.”

“You have time.”

“Any day now, right?” 

She swallowed, and blinked a little. “Any day,” she said, and put the Slate down to wipe at her face.

“Aw, Zelda,” Link said, “C’mere,” and she went under his arm. He held her, lightly, because her skin was still cool underneath all that warm glowing, and he’d never been able to shake the fear that if he pressed too hard, she’d go straight through– dissolve into it all over again. 

She smelled like nothing, and Link felt desperately cold. 

“They have to wake up,” she said against him. “Don’t tell me we haven’t tried. Can’t they try, too? You and Revali just had to open your eyes.”

“Hey. It’s gonna happen. You know it will.”

Link tried to rein in his own expression as she cried. He knew he wasn’t good at it because of the way they talked to him at the meetings, but it was hard when you had to ask for grain and ore, and all they asked in return was why. Why three, not four? Why him, not them? Why and why and why. 

Zelda’s sobs died down into gasps, and by the time the Guardian finally ticked to a halt, the lanterns below the battlements had long since gone dim. She scrubbed her face, and had the little white egg tick its way over. She picked it up and cradled it, and it whistled twice before shutting down.

“I thought I’d moved on,” she said. “I thought it was all over.” 

Link took the Slate from her with hands that were stiff from cold. “We all did. I know. Zelda, just– take care of yourself, okay? I can put in an order any time you want. Blankets, apples, fruitcake. Please just try and eat something.” 

“Thank you, Link. I’ll try.”

“No problem. Use Purah’s Slate if you need me. I’ll wind-bomb over here or something, won’t even have to climb the castle.”

“I wouldn’t expect anything less,” she said, and he put on a smile as well. A check of the Sheikah Slate showed a midnight as clear as ice. He still had to talk to Paya and Symin about supply logistics, if they were awake, or give directions to the next scouting foray, if they’d come back. The Slate slid into its holster, and Link made a beckoning motion. 

“Walls up, princess. It’s gonna be a long night, too.” 

“As you wish.” She smiled one last time, pushed the bobbed hair back, and folded her hands to the front. “Attention, knight.” 

Link lowered his gaze, then went to one knee. “Your Sacred Highness.”

“You’re to join Chief Riju and her guard at Vah Naboris on the next new moon. Continue in your primary mission otherwise. If you do find the root of the darkness, you are not to engage. Report all issues directly to me and the Council.”

“Understood, Your Highness.”

She wiped her face again, still holding the little egg. “Very well. Let us go in.” 

He could barely hear her footsteps.

* * *

Link stored supplies as a starving squirrel stored hazelnuts. He didn’t know what he was worrying about, because Revali out of anyone could hold his own. But every time he melted away into icy blue light, the three Beasts would be frozen at the corners of the horizon, maws gaping in a silent cry. Then Link would work, travel, and come back laden with more than they could ever hope to carry, all stored in caches around the most hidden shrines. 

And he’d felt it. The prickling. Every time they came across another empty nest, a thread of unease would wind its way up Link’s core. There was no use telling Zelda– the Council wasn’t going to vote on a feeling– but maybe if Link played this right, someone else could humor the idea. 

Link pressed his chilled hands together and breathed on them, then stepped around the entrance of the mossy green cave. 

“You know, I was thinking,” he said, “Maybe we could take a break from travelling today.”

Revali glanced up. He had splayed out a new batch of arrows before their domed white tents, and was now checking their straightness with his tiny file. He looked a little better, probably because they’d stopped earlier for water, and at just the right angle, that beautiful grey bow might have been another set of wings. 

Link leaned against the mouth of the cave and winced.  _ He _ wanted wings. It had taken at least two wind-bombs to get here from the nearest shrine (damn monks,) and the last bomb had caught him at an interesting angle, leaving Link with a very new, very painful, and very shield-shaped row of bruises across one half of his back. And he’d still been late.

“Hmm,” Revali tilted his head. “I might appreciate a why.” 

“There isn’t actually a why.” 

“Well now, then there isn’t  _ actually _ a decision.” Revali turned back to the arrows with a wave. “I hardly need to remind you that our course of action concerns the both of us, and unlike most other people, I have no interest in… frivolity.” 

Link didn’t know what that word meant. “Okay, fine, No– whatever frivolity. We’re taking a break because you’ve been upset. More than upset, actually, and we need to talk strategy.”

“I’m hardly upset,” Revali said, “and I thought you didn’t need strategy.”

Link took a deep breath. He was going to do it. Sorry, Zelda, but Link was going to strangle this overgrown fucking cucco. Send Rito Village a tribute. “ _ Strategy _ , not tactics. I’m talking about the monster nests. We need to think about where we’re going if they keep coming up empty, and don’t call me crazy, okay– but they might feel a little weird.” 

That got Revali’s attention. “You feel it too?” 

“Mhm,” Link said. “Prickling,” and a deep and freezing dread. 

Slowly, carefully, Revali straightened himself from the spread of arrows. “How intriguing. I suppose we might talk after all.” 

Link could have wept with relief. He sat down on the damp stone floor and dumped out his pack. A push of last night’s fire got it up to a blaze, and the pot hanging over the embers was silent until he cut up a block of butter and dropped it in to sizzle. Then it was two blocks of hunted meat, a whole carrot from Satori mountain, and a full bottle of beef stock from the kitchens glugging over the lot of it. Link felt Revali’s gaze at the nape of his neck the whole time he chopped and stirred. To finish, a couple of small pumpkins inched into the coals to roast. 

“I wouldn’t really call this talking,” Revali said at last. 

“Yeah, you’ll never guess, but it’s something called cooking,” and yep, it was going to be him or Revali, strangling one or the other. Good way to go. Clean. 

Revali ruffled himself again, shot him a narrow look. “If you wanted to take a break, there’s no reason not to say so. I suppose I would have agreed even without your shoddy excuse.”

“Without my shoddy excuse?” 

“Well,” Revali said. “Have you  _ seen _ yourself lately? Really looked at yourself, I mean, and not one of those cursory glances you do in whichever river we ford on some unfortunate day.” 

Link didn’t look at mirrors. “I mean, not really– why?”

“Because nowadays you wear much of your heart on those little cotton travelling sleeves.” Revali jerked his beak at the pot. “You also don’t usually cook enough to feed five or six at a time. Unless I’m greatly mistaken, the regular number hovers at four.” 

“How dare you accuse me of anything less than six,” Link said. “I want an understanding, here.”

“Me, an understanding with you?” Revali snorted. “I’d sooner understand how much you can  _ eat _ . Do you really never cook for others?”

“Kind of hard to do that in the wilds,” Link said. 

“And why?”

“Guess it’s cause I’m always alone.” 

Revali leaned forward and propped his head up, resting against his elbows. “Intriguing,” he said, “very intriguing, what you’ve said, when I was under the impression that you barely came out here at all. Tell me, hero of Hyrule, if you will– exactly how much of this trip is a coincidence?”

Ah. Link turned around and prodded the bubbling pot. He’d given himself clean away. But why not, at this point, why not. There were too many things locked inside him these days, a habit that was good as necessity. And even though this was Revali, who was the very last person he should be saying anything to– maybe Link could afford this. Just this at the very least.

“Actually it’s my job,” Link said as he moved the spoon. “When the rebuilding first started, I wanted to leave and go somewhere else. Rebuilding Castletown was always Zelda’s dream, and only half of mine. But more people came for the light than we thought– mostly farmers, families, and I mean, there were a  _ lot _ of monsters back then. Way more than there are today. So the people came, and there were some nests, and some stable guards started organizing to fight.” 

He broke apart a chunk of carrot. Things had been cleaner when he’d stayed away in the wilds. Trials, chests, gifts, orbs. Anything the goddess gave him, he took, and she gave and gave and gave. But did he ever think about how much they would weigh? He did not. He took them and held them, and when the people started asking him for help, there in front of him was a choice. 

And it was that, or have the voice crushed out of him again.

“The first troop tried to take out two nests by themselves. I—” found them in pieces. I could have fought instead. I would have liked it. I would have saved them. All of them. The four of them. 

“Yes?” Revali asked quietly.

“I slaughtered both nests in an hour.” From the mouth of their small cave, he could see a long arc of swans moving out across the skies, and the trees like gold filigree. “So it’s my job. I can’t sit by and watch, and they need me to keep the numbers down. We don’t need a standing force if I can do what I need to do. But I swear I’ll go insane if I stay in that castle. I swear I actually will.”

The cave was silent except the bubbling of the pot. Link had wanted to be surprised, but he could deal with more of the same. People muttered to each other about a hero who had a talent for butchery, after all, because who didn’t like him when he was next to Zelda? Silent and clean and golden. All except for his disgraceful little trips into the wilds, where– horror of horrors– he might actually dare draw a sword. 

Cloth rustled behind him, and Link turned just in time to meet Revali’s unreadable look, and feel the spoon slide from between his fingers. With a little ruffle, Revali tucked the scarf into his vest and leaned over the pot. 

A slow stir. “I suppose that’s why you run from the carriages,” Revali said.

“I guess it kind of depends.”

“Then you’ll inform the drivers the next time they’re in pursuit. It’s only sporting to do so.” 

“You really think they need a head start?” 

“Of course they do. And if they knew any better, they’d even change out the horses.” Revali hummed a bit, and covered the pot with the lid. “It wouldn’t be a fair competition otherwise.” 

“It’s fair when I jog  _ sometimes _ .”

“Sometimes isn’t enough.” Revali flicked back one of his braids. “But if they ever inflicted so much pomp, circumstance, and pontification on  _ me _ , I daresay I would’ve outrun them long ago.” 

“You, running?” Link said, irrepressibly warm. “Not with those legs.” 

After Revali had finished checking his legs in outrage, Link took over the pot to keep things from burning. They traded more jabs as they waited, and when the soup started to smell delicious, Link scooted closer to let Revali ladle him a slightly larger portion than usual. The pumpkins steamed as they were sliced in half. 

For a while they just sat there, chewing on soft, orange pumpkins dipped in stew. An expression of thoughtfulness had worked its way onto Revali’s face, but he still managed to eat his food in the same way he did everything: with great intensity and a little too fast. Link hid his smile behind his bowl, and wondered out loud if he’d ever need to perform some kind of rescue maneuver one day. 

That got him a glare, at least, and half an hour later they were entangled in an argument about bird calls, which were of great cultural significance to the Rito and great gastronomical significance to Link. But it was nice. It was really, really nice. 

Link had just taken off his cloak from the day’s heat when Revali said, abruptly, “I suppose you ought to have  _ some _ reason to be out here. I should’ve known that it wasn’t really a pull.”

“A pull?” 

“What you said at Serenne Stable. I thought you were on some misguided endeavor to follow me.” Revali said, and everything about him looked and sounded like it hurt. “You never do forget being a hero, do you?” 

Link folded up his cloak. The pull. The way Revali had breathed in that room, half-dead, for the better part of a year. Go see him, Zelda said, see him when he’s awake, and I can’t. I can’t. I can’t. I can’t. But now Revali’s eyes were like copperfire, and every part of him was warm and alive and moving, more than any memory, and the Rito symbol was stamped on the scarf around his throat. 

“What if I did?” Link asked.

“Did what?”

The air could have been glass. “What if I came here for another reason.” 

He should never have said it, but here it was between them. And even in the thick coils of guilt, Link couldn’t help but see every single stitch on that soft white scarf, every single fold from the tight knot on the back. He was close enough to pull it loose. 

Revali wasn’t looking at him. “Then I hope it overlaps with our current one.”

“Good answer,” Link said.

The scarf was warm and white. 

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> back to the adventuring tsundebirb for the next chapter– expect something longer and darker in tone as I desperately try to update this fic alongside AoC canon. I'm excited though! birb is our main focus, after all, and we're gonna put him through some real shit (aka CONFLICT)
> 
> but you know, I've always wanted to explore link + zelda's relationship after the calamity if they had to keep their platonic or professional positions. like, what boundaries would they have? how can you continue this princess/knight dynamic when you're literal soul-mates and possible religious symbols, bound together by trauma and duty and destiny? like,,, anyone? partial credit for zelda's unearthliness goes to the wonderful fic "breathing out" by spacebeyonce; i.e. similar ideas, but that fic takes the concept and fuckin sprints with it. incredible.
> 
> thank you @sarcasticmudkip for the incredible beta, and thanks again for all the support :)


	4. more breath than sound

Going by the roads had made practice difficult. 

It wasn’t that he couldn’t hide, no, there was plenty of that– but skipping all the annoying little detours for only the major nests meant that Link had less chance of scouting, and Revali had resigned himself to regular campfire talks at night. Among the fires there’d be some peace from the travel, and now between them was an unfamiliar rapport: closer, warmer, and careless in a way that made Revali get up even earlier in the mornings, and preen himself and feel stupid. 

Revali shifted to ease the chafe of bandages. In any case, Link wasn’t  _ blind _ . A castellan with a caveat– stranger jobs certainly existed, but if Link was truly able to take out monster nests with ease, then perhaps he’d retained more of his memory than Revali had initially thought. It was a matter of competence, perhaps. How much did Link remember, and how good was he? As good as before, where Revali had once watched him lead entire battalions with that glowing sword in hand, untouchable and unfazed? Or not? 

Why did Revali  _ care? _

He cared because– of Hyrule, of course. He’d have asked directly, too, except talking to Link was danger itself. On a particularly bad day with the pain, Link had noticed enough to insist that they hop into the nearest river, ha-ha, for a  _ lark _ . Revali had argued himself hoarse, and had only managed to escape further questions by agreeing to stand delicately in the shallows. 

Again: he’d have to be careful. He was running out all the same. 

Bandages, hiding spots, energy. The Gale was still possible, if he was amenable to aerial haemorrhage, but now the wound seemed to pick the worst possible times to break through. In travelling for instance, he was spared. But in practice it bled like an omen, and the discharge was a thicker black blood. Just as well that Link took things slower: Revali had smeared on the poultice this morning and scraped the bottom of that little blue bottle. The scrapings went on where they could in a film stretching over the black flesh, and it was this ugliness really that prickled, prickled wherever they went near nests like now, searing in the middle and prickling– 

_ Crack!– _ Revali’s hand shot to the bow. His horse had broken a twig. It was the early morning but he shuddered, and tried hard to pretend it was a shake. Except Link caught the movement from the side and said: “I know. Feels really wrong.” 

The two monster towers curved up before them, twisted skeletons of black iron. The arches went into themselves, cradled by the walls of the valley on both sides, and together they wavered in the heat of the Eldin summer. It was one last burst of dryness with no wind to soothe it away, and Hylia, Revali would have given half his  _ bow _ for even a breath of the cold green Hebra. His feathers had gone slick against his back, and the animals around them had gone silent with thirst. 

“You ready?” Link asked. 

“You don’t even need to ask,” Revali said, and they split out of habit. One tower each for a cursory check and then broader sweep to the center. 

Revali let the Falcon Bow lead around each turn of the hammered staircase. The metal scalded his feet, and he hissed and lightened his tread. No rushing in these days: the humiliation of the first nest still rankled. But had it really been his fault? There was Link who’d offered to race, but then Revali had accepted like he’d done with Medoh. Then, if there wasn’t an offer, he might’ve torn it open anyways, might’ve fallen yet again– 

The wound seared, and Revali clamped down against the wash of pain. He leaned briefly behind a pillar, and then straightened up and walked quickly over to the chests on the platform before he could change his mind. One of them was empty. The other chest protected a single mottled bead of amber. 

Revali held the lid, was about to slam it back down in the irritation of heat, when Link called out across the valley.   
  
“Think you can get over here?”

Revali grimaced. “Did you manage to find something?” 

“Yep. I think I did.” 

Hm, he  _ thinks _ he did, and Revali eased himself off the edge of the platform, relishing the taste of moving air. Gliding was still fine, if he didn’t move his wings too much, and a smooth little stall drew him out of his descent as he floated onto Link’s metal platform. His claws clicked on the metal in a nice and dramatic way, and Revali drawled, “Well? It’s rude to keep me waiting,” before he saw the grim line of the jaw, and then the mutilated floor. 

The gashes were so deep that the metal may as well have been clay. Fifteen to twenty sets of claws had gone at it in a frenzy, and the scratch marks were so fresh that they were still black against the orange patina of rust. Revali eyed the tracks. Evidently these monsters had an athletic bent to them, since they’d all hurled themselves clear off the edge of the platform. The claw marks landed behind the towers and then went scrabbling up the cliffs opposite.

And beyond the cliffs– Revali checked the map– was the Canyon. They were on the edge of the Kingdom of Hyrule. 

They stared at the winding tracks in silence, and then Link put his arms behind his head. “Something tells me they migrated.” 

“Are you saying this because I have  _ feathers _ ?”

“What? No. I’m saying it cause of the beak.”

“Hilarious,” Revali said mildly. “Though I imagine migration would be the sensible choice, too, if they saw the sorts of things you ate last night. Any sane entity would be terrified they’d be next.” 

“They’re only next if we catch them,” Link grinned, but in the tilt of his head was a question.

Revali nodded once before spreading the map across the floor. He oriented the compass rose along the direction of the claw marks, squinted at the trail, and took out the pen to trace a new path over the cliffs. The pen hovered over the last three crossmarks on the way to Eldin Skeleton. Then it scratched them out, and Link crouched down (very closely, hmm) to add his own scrawling hand.

Half a day later, they came around the side of the cliffs and to the edge of the Canyon. It branched out below them like an artery, and the river that had carved their land had long since drained into the sea. Now, the only water left was the mist that filled the Canyon with thick white haze. Here in the soil beneath them lay memories, calamities, debts, and dreams. And there, across the Canyon...

Revali held his breath, then strutted over to the edge and looked down. He’d tossed branches into the Hebra canyon’s yawning depths as a tiny chick, and had never once heard the wood shatter below. Here, it was just as far. The tops of a field of spires poked through the blanket of mist, rising into a wall on the other side– the wall that marked the true boundary of Hyrule. It was high enough that even two, three Gales wouldn’t be able to scale it. 

The lizalfo tracks led downwards.

Link tied up the horses and joined him, the dust on his face like a smear of red paint. “It’ll be tough coming back up,” he said.

“I don’t imagine we have a choice.” 

“Some of us always have a choice.” Link turned to him, his voice softer. “You know I wouldn’t blame you if you chose to go back.” 

Revali thought of the wound on his side and how the blackness had spread like ink. How the bow trembled when he held it at night in the tent, and how Medoh hadn’t been looking at him, the entire time he trundled away. “And where would I go back to, would you say?”

“Castletown, maybe. Or Rito Village if you want.” 

The homesickness went over Revali like a tide. “Rito Village can wait,” he said lightly. “We may as well see things through, after so far. Why– unless you think you don’t need my help anymore?”

“You’ve done as much as I have here. But that’s not really what I’m saying.”

“Go on, then. Don’t be coy.” 

Link gazed into the Canyon. “This won’t be Hyrule anymore,” he said. “I’ve never been past the edge, it’ll be harder for us to get supplies, and we may as well burn the map right now. I know the trip’s been harder for you– no, no,” he held up a hand at Revali’s indignant glare. “You know what I mean. All I’m saying is I don’t know how long this will take.”

“Then allow us to humor the notion,” Revali hummed. “Where would you go, hero, if I were to flap off to some unforetold comforts?”

“I’d go back part of the way with you. And then I’d come back here myself.”

Part of the way with him. Revali turned to the horses with flagging hopes. “Do we even have enough supplies?”

“Depends. For going back or going ahead?”

“For either,” Revali said, because he knew they were running out on this, too. 

The bags on their horses had been almost empty ever since Link’s chain of supply caches had dwindled away, and they’d been relying on foraging for days _. _ There was no issue with food, despite Revali’s insistence otherwise, because Link had somehow developed a recipe for a delectable wolf meat and berry stew– from the “wilds,” he explained as he cooked, because everything he knew out here was from the wilds.

Link pursed his mouth. “If you really, really want to stay,” he hesitated again. “We can probably check out an outpost nearby. The miners there should know about the landscape up ahead, and we could rest, prepare, maybe borrow some supplies. I’ve been waiting on their report anyways. They’re usually not this late.” 

“Since I  _ am _ sure I’m going to stay, then yes. I suppose we may go.” Revali looked around, unsettled. “Though I’m curious as to why the Queen would allow miners here in the first place. This territory is not what I’d precisely call– hospitable.”

“We couldn’t afford to turn them down.” 

“You mean during the rebuilding?”

Link didn’t look at him. “I mean maybe about a year ago.”

The tide of homesickness turned to frost _._ Trade and diplomacy, Diplomacy and resurrection. When Rito Village had foisted him out, Zelda and Castletown had taken him in– and no matter how much Revali tried to look away from the wreckage of the past, the reality was that he was alive and boasting while three others lay suspended in their tombs. Link was gazing at the wall across the Canyon, and Revali felt the bitter smile. 

“I see. Bringing up my home when you already know the answer.” 

“It wasn’t your fault.”

“It wasn’t my decision.”

“Whether or not you can go back is more of your decision than mine,” Link said quietly, and Revali looked over the edge once more. 

Him and this bizarre little chase for a kingdom where nobody had wings. Link was castellan over Hyrule, and Revali was Champion over nothing. His own fault for waking up, in the end. His own fault for failing his Village so hard that they hadn’t even tried to keep him there after all that, in a cage that he would never have wanted to leave. Diplomacy and resurrection; diplomacy and belonging. The wound. Medoh. The Gale. His trembling, gorgeous bow. Oh Hylia. 

When was the last time he’d seen another Rito?

“Let’s not waste time,” he said, and turned away from the crevasse below. 

* * *

Clouds came in overcast as they went, and the thick hot afternoon oozed its way into a violet twilight. Link brought them around the edge of a smaller plain, and Revali held his side and scanned for the miners’ Hylian flag. He half-expected another set of tracks to come rising up from the sand like the prints of a ghost, half-expected to turn around and see red eyes, looking at him like they did when he slept. 

There was no sound except the lonely echo of hooves. Link breathed next to him, slowly, and the landscape itself was scraped clean of movement. Revali’s braids had tightened to the point of pain, and he looked away from the dying sun to soothe his headache. The outpost would be good for them. Perhaps Link was right. Revali was simply missing some company, along with almost everything else in his life. 

But there was that sense again. An old warrior’s sense that something was not right. Revali scanned the horizon as they clopped through the plain, nothing around them but the violet spires rising up, and the dim, waning moon. Shouldn’t they have heard something by now? Some mining song, some clang of steel? The crawling feeling was there on his skin again. And what were those coiling shapes at the feet of the darkened cliffs–?

Something fluttered. The bow was out and drawn, but there, barely visible over the ridge, rippled a blue and gold Hylian flag. Revali stared at it. The bottom half was in tatters, trailing threads. One long rip had gone through the seam in the middle, the stitches gaping apart, and it was clear even from where they stood that the flag had been gutted like a fish.

“Link,” he said. “Is there someone at the outpost?”

“There should be. Why?”

Revali’s mouth filled with a taste like hard copper. “Speed up your horse.” 

Link glanced, saw the flag, and went pale. A clatter of hooves in the darkening rock, and he’d gone racing up first, Revali following close behind. One more mockery of how they’d come up to that first empty nest. Empty, empty, empty. Revali tried to breathe, but the deep cold water filled up his throat. It was instinct that kept him on the horse, the same cluster of nerves that had seized him in the earthquake before Lanayru Gate, and flung him across the kingdom to his death. 

Then Link was off his horse, stumbling, and Revali’s mount reared. 

The outpost lay in pieces. The walls of the small shelter had been torn through, and the same deep gouges from the tower were there in the planks scattered about like leaves. Ration packs spilled their contents to mix with the dust, and the vases of collected water lay broken and dry. Along the sides of walls were enormous smears of dried blood. They had been licked at by long, coiling tongues. The brownish claw marks that went through the blood led off in every direction, circled around, and then trailed into the dust. 

“If we hadn’t stopped,” Link said. He wiped his mouth. “If we hadn’t stopped–”

“Check the surroundings.” Revali got off his horse. The familiar numbness went over him like a blanket. The Calamity had been one year ago, and he’d kept the staring soldiers and twitching Guardians inside his sleep. Scenes like this slid off him when he looked at the road, and now Revali pleaded that scenes like this would slide off him now, because there was too much inside already. He was full of memories in a way that Link would never be. 

If they hadn’t stopped. If he hadn’t woken up. Link was still staring, and Revali moved closer.

“Link,” he said. “Focus on what you can do.”

Link’s shoulders slackened and reformed. “Yeah. Okay, I got it,” and he took off his gloves and clenched his hands, before sliding the gloves back on again. Then with quick light steps, he went around the left side of the wreckage. Revali headed to the right. 

They searched throughout the night, guided by torches. No bodies, no weapons, no lizalfos. The most they salvaged was a couple handfuls of arrows, elemental and wooden. Revali slotted them into his quiver, then fashioned a simple marker out of a stick and piece of the ruined Hylian flag. It went in the middle of the clearing before the wreckage, and they knelt down and said a prayer: the Hylian one clear and ringing, the Rito one low and intimate. 

“I have to go back,” Link said. He’d stayed kneeling in front of the marker even after Revali continued to scout the border of the outpost, mechanical, the Falcon bow nocked and ready. “This isn’t a coincidence anymore. We need supplies if we’re following those tracks and the Council has to know.” 

Decisions were supposed to be easier when they were made out loud. Revali gazed at the tiny memorial marker, and thought of the black wound on his side _. _ “The irony of our earlier conversation comes to mind,” he said. “Surely you don’t mean all the way back.”

“No, not that far back. Just to get a signal to Zelda, pick up most of the supplies. It’s three days to the last checkpoint. Two if I really push it.” 

“I suppose it’s for the best. I’ll stay and make camp, then.” 

Link got up and turned around. He’d never stopped fidgeting when they were on the road, but now his hands were at his sides. “Two days is nothing,” he said. “No distance at all, actually. What are you gonna do with all the spare time?”

The carnage of the outpost swallowed them. 

“Look around, I suppose,” Revali said. 

They stared at each other, and then Link slid off his pack in a single motion. He started opening it and going through the pouches, touching each one as he spoke. “Here’s some bandages. Here’s a couple of rarer elixirs, maybe some extra rations.” He glanced up with every few items. “I’ll travel much faster without any extra stuff.”

“Then you may as well leave the arrows,” Revali gestured. “Hard to imagine, I know, but I didn’t become the greatest archer in Hyrule by hurling my bows at targets.” 

“You can take all of them,” Link said immediately, and he went to the saddlebag and picked out a bundle of frosts, a bundle of shocks, and a scattered handful of freshly minted fires. These he wrapped a tight bundle and held out tail first. Revali took them, and began to sort them by type like clockwork. 

“Of course you wouldn’t organize these.”

“I can learn some other time.” 

The sorted arrows clattered as he slid them into his quiver, and the Eagle Bow shifted against his shoulders with the movement. “There’s no rush.”

Link folded up the rest of the supplies and checked the stirrups on his waiting horse. The carved metal shield clicked against the scabbard as he adjusted the remaining saddlebag, which was the one that carried all the knick-knacks he’d picked up along their journey: an acorn here, a pebble there. He was as upright as he’d ever been at the hull of Lanayru Gate, and suddenly Revali saw Link as he remembered him, silent and five years too young. 

The discipline of dawn was gone. Orange torchlight bled over the soft mouth in front of him, and over the touches of blue paint on the neck. 

“Do you blame me?” Link asked quietly.

“I wouldn’t stand in the way of anyone’s duty,” Revali said. He tried for a wave. “Go on then, won’t you?” 

And Link stepped forward. His hand wavered for a moment between them, and then settled with gentle weight onto Revali’s scarf– not quite at the shoulder, not quite at the heart. Link’s thumb brushed the fabric. The expression on his face was small and open. 

Say something, Revali thought. Why could neither of them say anything? It was like a dam, where the very pressure of the flood kept the opening sealed shut. Revali took the hand by its soft wrist and drew it down. He was a moment away from letting it go again when Link closed his grip and said all in a rush: 

“Please stay safe.” 

“I will.” Revali said just as suddenly, in a voice that was more breath than sound. He wondered, then, if Link would forgive a lie. 

* * *

Revali set up his single tent at a small alcove near the Canyon, and was done moving the leftover supplies from the outpost before he began to prepare. He checked the straightness of the arrows, tapped the heads of the elemental ones on a flat rock so that they’d spark splendidly. Since he’d had no occasion to use it, the bowstring of the Duplex was taut as usual, but the Falcon he had to tune and adjust for an hour. Still too light. Bowstring too slack. 

He tuned it again. Then he took it apart and tuned it again, again, but the left side was still too rigid when compared to the right. It would throw off his aim, which meant poor archery, and then he would miss again. And then he would lose again. And then he would die. Again. 

He held it tightly, and placed it on the rock. Then, for the first time since he left Castletown, Revali eased the Great Eagle Bow down under daylight. They’d repainted it throughout the ages, grey and gold, and really, he might’ve gone back five years or a hundred– it was in such pristine condition. But this was how it was always meant to be. The perfect bow under daylight, and he who had been surpassed by its perfection steeling himself for a battle alone. There was nothing but that tide of victories to carry him ceaselessly forward. 

He’d lost only once.

One loss didn’t have to mean anything. It was a fluke. He’d been  _ winging _ it (that one took a bit to think of.) One measly loss would not change the outcome of whatever was going to come next, if it ever maybe perhaps  _ decided _ to come next. And yes, he could fight to defend himself, but that reason seemed so much smaller, so much punier than when he once defended some great idea like the fall of the Kingdom of Hyrule. 

But Hyrule had fallen. So had he. 

Revali glanced down at himself. He’d once kept himself in smooth shape, but with no one around, he could admit that the wilderness had left him bedraggled. Back in the Village he would’ve spent days combing out the snarls in his feathers. Now– well. There was the dead, and there was him. If Revali hadn’t woken up, he might not have been gathering up some shattered supplies; might not be looking at his bow; might not have been sitting on the rock, waiting for hunger to force him to move because there was no smell of cooking to draw him away. 

In small, precise movements, Revali began to tune his bow. 

Now focus. Something had crushed the outpost utterly. The only point of fighting was to prove to  _ himself _ that the Gale was good enough for combat (it wasn’t,) or that he could prepare enough to be ready for what was coming (he couldn’t.) 

“What better way to spend my time?” he said out loud.

The Eagle Bow trembled in response. 

Over the next two days, Revali got up precisely at dawn. He wrote a note and pinned it to the marker, in case someone came by the outpost, then spent his time circling around the feet of the cliffs, half-looking for a fight, the arrows clacking among themselves in the quiver. He strutted up the steeper slopes and glided down with meaningless flourishes onto platforms of jagged rock. He left the horse happily tearing up the sparse weeds around them, and in a spurt of irony he named her Meadow, and felt unusually proud.

He did not train the Gale. One hundred years ago he’d made a habit: to never touch the Gale before battle, if only to surprise himself with its freshness when combat erupted again. If only to be surprised this time.

By the time the third night came, the feeling in Revali’s chest was like an elastic set to snap. He perched in the direction of Castletown, ruffled himself, and pretended that he wasn’t about to wait.

Link didn’t come back. 

Revali stayed through high noon, getting off and on the perch about six times, and then started counting the number of trees around them. It wasn’t a lot. Then he glided down, went back up to check again at around three or four, and resorted to pacing around before he realized that he was pacing, and stopped. 

Something had happened. What was he thinking, believing Link when he talked about defending Hyrule or keeping numbers down as his job? Titles didn’t  _ mean _ anything. Why had he believed him, when they’d done nothing but travel and cook and talk, and when Revali hadn’t seen Link fight on his own this– this whole century? The dumb knight might’ve actually tripped on something. Bashed his head on a rock. Forgotten their journey all over again, wouldn’t that be utterly amusing. 

Or maybe something had happened. 

No, nothing had happened. Link had the sword and all the damned, sacred, darkness-sealing luster that came with it. Maybe he’d even retained his divine ability. Revali didn’t  _ remember _ Link battling the Calamity, but an entire kingdom’s archives wouldn’t lie. 

So that was it. Perhaps Link had left for good because of what happened to the Champions– it always came back to them. It always came back to him. Slowly, Revali began to pack up the little perch of things around him, pausing between each step. He’d need to plan for moving forwards. The tracks were a good start. He’d follow those after cleaning up the campsite, taking down the tent– did he remember the procedure? Yes: the canvas first, then the poles, then the pins on the ground. Then the fire would need to be doused with their little water, which would hiss, and then he’d go to the Canyon. 

Or he could go back and find Link. Go back to Rito Village, who wouldn’t take him– could he eke out an existence hidden away near the Flight Range? Hidden away atop of Vah Medoh?

Revali hesitated, then walked over to the Canyon and gazed down at it once more. He scoffed. To think this was what kept Hyrule isolated for a millennia! Why, it was completely ludicrous. Perhaps that was what Link had seen, when they were both on the edge here together. It was what gave him that light in the eyes, and at that thought Revali tightened his scarf, and turned in the unbearable heat to walk slowly back to camp. Then he turned the corner– and froze. 

Nine golden lizalfos paused in their scuttling around the spoiled camp, winking ghoulishly at him as their eyes rolled in their sockets. Their jaws hung with strands of bloody saliva, and from them came the stench of carrion, and some indefinable reptilian dust. The sun in the afternoon caught the smiling curve of the boomerangs at their sides. They shrieked as one. 

“It’s really about time.” Revali nocked the Falcon Bow. “I’ve had a lot of things on my mind.”

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> fight fight fight


	5. unfolding, quickly

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry this was a bit late! midterms are rough
> 
> lizalfo = singular, lizalfos = plural, at least in my book. thanks to beta for pointing this out :)

The first arrow caught one through the eye. It went rolling down, shrieking, and as the lizalfos leapt back in shock, Revali shot every single one of them in the head as they tried to scramble away. Their bodies twitched and thrashed. He drew again. 

He counted the headshots with heartbeats. Six. Nine. Twelve. A check around– good, Meadow had fled the area – and the first golden lizalfo lurched back up, scuttling towards him with its tongue curling out. It hissed, and promptly took another arrow to the roof of the mouth. But it had got up fast, way too fast, and as the lizalfo flipped over again, Revali caught sight of the scabs crawling over its face. 

Tougher, Link whispered, kind of by a lot, and Revali tossed his head. “Can’t fight properly without a healing factor?” he called. “Pathetic.” 

They raced at him again and he put the arrows through their eyes, scanning the entire time for some sort of ledge, some sort of dip. They were healing unlike anything he’d ever seen, but the cliffs around them were high and far, and the Falcon was no match for the Great Eagle Bow. Revali slid a bomb arrow into place.

Heat rolled over him as the clearing burst into a roiling mass of flame, the string of concussive blasts echoing around the valley. Hylia, he’d never been so close before, he’d always been up high– and they were somehow coming again with their skin sloughing of the blackened flesh, too wild for bomb arrows, and far too close. 

One staggered up and ran at him from the side, eyeballs popped from the heat. Revali shot and hit the throat, but the lizalfo stumbled and lurched forward, tail slicing out. Revali pivoted, met the swing with the bow. The wood shivered as the tail crashed into it, and he moved with the swing into a crouch, slashing the gut with a frost arrow. The creature crystallized into ice, and as Revali touched the ground a hurricane burst up– and he shot the figure as it tumbled away. It spasmed in the bolt of electricity.

But the rest of them were getting up. He’d taken too long and they seized the opening. Revali flipped the bow and shot again, again, again. He didn’t have the firepower while grounded, and he was doing nothing but buying time, Revali _knew_ it because the fragile skin on his side was stretching even as he drew. But he’d come down in three seconds with the Gale. Lose all control as he went. He needed some fucking height, he needed firepower or some kind of damned structure, come on, _think,_ what’s around you–

The Canyon. The Canyon was deep behind him, and Revali’s heart began to kick. They hadn’t worked out a way back up yet. But if Link came back and saw the blackened camp, if he heard the explosions, if he could stay on the cliffs long enough to see some kind of flare– 

Revali could take them all out with a single Gale. 

“Come on,” he sneered, old bravado. “Is that the best you’ve got? Even Ganon needed a special one for me, don’t think I’d bother with the likes of _you_.”

They screamed at him, and he drew them carefully to the edge, firing just enough to keep their ranks in place. They circled him, flicked their gazes to the taut bow in his hands. Closer. Closer. Revali’s feet brushed the cusp of nothing. He lowered his bow half an inch. Bent over and pretended to gasp.

They sprang.

 _Now_. Revali slammed his hands to the ground and shot up like a flare, and the world dissolved into a haze of pain. He heard the lizals screech in surprise, saw them skitter around the edge, bodies tipping forwards as he flipped in a massive arc above them. One swoop to stabilize. Targets near the rim. Three bomb arrows. Falcon Bow. They slotted in a fan, the string cutting into his grip, but in the space between the seconds, Revali was where he was supposed to be at last. 

Aim. Breathe. Loose. 

The edge of the cliff exploded into a rain of rock and fire that hurtled into the depths below. The lizalfos clawed in the air and dirt, fell shrieking along with it, and Revali spun in midair, then dove like a comet to follow. 

Twenty seconds left in the air. He spiralled into a corkscrew and loosed a barrage of frost, and the lizalfos froze in their screams with a shimmer of ice. The freezing air whipped around him, no, not freezing, he was bleeding coldly on one side. 

Eighteen seconds. 

The shells of ice shattered as the bomb arrows hit, and Revali sped through the starbursts of heat, the mist streaming through his wings. It was pain but also glory; it was the bowstring thrumming under more than a lifetime’s worth of practice. The bodies crumpled over the rocks below. Half of them did not get up. Half of them did. 

Twelve seconds.

They staggered up, slavering over their wounds. The skin began knitting together. Two of four had kept their boomerangs, and as the steel spun towards him Revali swept to the left, shot again as he dodged, to the head, to the eyes. A miss and two hits. Sparkling electricity, shuddering. 

Nine seconds.

He could see the pebbles on the ground. Not enough, not enough– he stalled upwards, fluttering, and another boomerang went spinning towards him in a disc of blinding steel. A second before he dove the lizalfo widened its eyes and hissed. He caught the gaze. No. That shade of red. Its pupils were that same shade of red, and –

He’s falling and Medoh deserves more than this. Half a second before he hits the ground, and it’s over, over, over, he’s leaving his home unprotected, and Revali tries to flap but the wind won’t come, he loves it more than life but it won’t be here when he dies, no one will be here when he dies, and in spite of all his training he’s terrified–

The steel sliced him just over the eyes. 

Six seconds.

Agony. The world was scarlet, he couldn’t _see–_ Revali dove blindly to the side, scraped across the cliffs as he searched for a ledge. His hand caught an outcrop but slipped, and he skidded down the side. No, he wasn’t going down. Not like before. Not like then. 

Zero.

The dirt was black and cold. As Revali smeared the blood from his eyes, the last two lizalfos spat at him, gurgling, their golden hides closing over anew. The Falcon clattered to the ground, and numbly, Revali eased down the Great Eagle Bow. It shook as he nocked it. Shook so hard that sparks from the bomb arrows drew tiny circles of light. Shook so hard that it turned in his grip. 

A boomerang slashed out, and Revali tried to draw, heard a clang, saw a flicker–

And Link slammed into the lizalfos with a sword of cold blue fire. 

The blows came down in a hellish rain, so fast that it made Revali’s eyes hurt, one long sound of destruction echoing across the canyon. The lizalfos went sprawling, and Link flipped and adjusted his stance. A blue cube winked to life in front of him. The two survivors leapt again, except the cube exploded into a star that Link parried with a clang, and in that burst of brilliance, Revali saw that the entire back of Link’s tunic had been almost shredded to pieces. His skin was black and bruised. 

Revali almost staggered. Close off the pain. Think. There was no chance of getting out anymore. Link had leapt in and now they were _both_ in the Canyon, and Hylia, he was fighting like a wounded wolf, going for anything closest to the blade. Forget about knighthood, forget about the tide of battle– this was savagery and desperation and joy, every perfect blow coming down like a sentence. 

“You dumb knight,” he muttered. “Get back, watch your damned _side,_ ” because Link was flickering in and out of existence, abusing that stupid gift even as lizalfos came at the sword– and everything about his positioning left him wide, wide open. All those scars, was there any wonder? Revali swapped the Eagle for the Falcon, power for precision, and watched himself aim with pain burning inside and out. Sniper’s vantage. Draw. 

He shot twice, and a lizalfo reeled with arrows to both eyes. Link took the opening, and a dirty feint had the claws closing over nothing as he swung his weight to smash the Hylian shield into its jaw. The lizalfo’s head snapped back, and the sacred blade sheared through its ribcage four times over. It fell into pieces. Link snarled. 

Sensing the end, the last lizalfo hesitated, skittered, then threw its boomerang in a desperate gambit. Link wasn’t looking. He’d flickered out right in front of the lizalfo, was halfway through the final swings as the boomerang curved around towards his exposed neck–

And Revali shot it clean out of the air. The boomerang clattered onto the rocks, skewered through and still spinning as Link opened up the lizalfo from the chin down to the guts. It toppled, and the bodies began to melt into thick black ash. 

Revali put his hand to the rocky wall. The world was still washed scarlet, and though his whole left side was warm and wet, the air around him could have been snow. Link was pulling his sword from the last crumbling corpse. Excellent. Revali adjusted his scarf and tried to clear his throat, then almost threw up from the pain. 

He tried again. Link wheeled around. “Revali. Oh Hylia no. No no no.” 

“Careless these days, aren’t we?” He was slurring. He never slurred. Something else to clarify to Link, of course, who was running to him with the sword still out. Dangerous, had he forgotten that, too? Might as well say something and meet him halfway, so Revali took a step and held it. He took another step and held it. Then the world melted from scarlet to black, his traitorous legs went loose, and the soft dark earth of the Canyon surged up to meet him once again. 

* * *

Day and night shifted like the slides of a kaleidoscope. Revali blinked awake to a thin white dome over him, sweating in some unbearable warmth. Blankets, he thought. Tent. And the battle– the battle– he struggled out of the blankets, groaned, and then the pain shot across his whole left side. 

He slumped back down, and something next to him bolted up. “Revali?” 

“Water,” he croaked. 

Link scrambled for the bottle. “Sorry, you might choke,” and then he tucked one hand under Revali’s head, the touch gentle, the pain inconceivable, and let him drink the water bit by bit. It went down warm and slaking, and Revali almost did choke with the ease of it– Link had done this before. 

“How long.”

“Since you went under? A few days. Four.” 

Entire days. Revali raised his head. There were dark circles under Link’s eyes, and he was pale even under the tan. Next to Revali was a bedroll, rumpled, and a pile of emptied elixir bottles and bandage rolls was stacked by the entrance. The air was heavy with the smell of medicine and sleep. 

“The bruises on your back,” Revali said.

“You noticed?” 

“Turn around.” 

Link lifted up his shirt and twisted over. A blotchy green mosaic lay over the countless scars, with two deeper lines going down from his shoulder blades to meet at the small of his back. The scabbard of the sword was printed on a diagonal. He’d been sleeping with it strapped for combat. “They’re fine,” Link said. “Better than yours.” 

“Curious pattern,” Revali murmured, and then he realized what Link had said. His hand darted to his side. The bandages had been freshly changed. Two for two in a hundred years, and Revali lowered himself onto the blankets again. “They are better, aren’t they,” he said bitterly. “Go on, say it. Or laugh, I really don’t care which.” 

Link looked at him. Then he reached into his pack and drew out a ruined boomerang. The arrow had struck at the perfect angle to cancel all the momentum in an instant, and with such force that the shaft had almost splintered. Link turned it over this way and that, as if admiring a new purchase at a market. Then he laid it on Revali’s lap. “You saved my life,” he said, “in the best display of archery I’ve ever seen.” 

The shaft sprouted up from the hideous whorl of steel. Revali blinked, and it turned into a memorial marker. He blinked again. It was just a bit of praise. He knew he was good– he was the chosen of Medoh, he’d fought in the war– but the outpost had been shattered. His horse was gone. They were in the Canyon, and now he didn’t know where to look.

“I wasn’t even flying. Hardly a praiseworthy shot.” 

“Can I dress the wound?” Link asked.

“I’m _fully_ capable now that I’m conscious–”

“I know,” Link said. “I just want to.”

It was no use. Revali turned his head away. Link had seen everything. The blackness, the blood, the staggering. He didn’t want to see the expression on that open face. He didn’t want to feel the expression on his own. Something brushed against his side, and the first bit of tape began to peel off. 

Then Link stopped, and said shakily: “I never would’ve left you if I’d known.”

“I thought we agreed you had somewhere to be.”

“No. That’s not what I mean. Why didn’t you tell me about the wound?”

Revali kept his voice flat. “What did you convey to the Queen?” 

“That I’d be staying here. That– this is gonna be a longer journey, and that we didn’t find anyone.” Link sounded hoarse. “She’s visiting the families in person.”

“Quite the noble leader.”

“No.” Link said. “Not like that. She hasn’t slept since New Castletown was built. She hasn’t eaten since maybe last year. Do you know what it’s been like? Watching her pour everything she has into this kingdom just because she can do it?” 

Zelda, sagging in her regalia every single time she’d finished healing him. Revali’s chest could have caved in. “It’s not true. I thought she said her power was weakening.”

“Her power isn’t weakening. She is. That light is the most powerful thing there is, yeah, but no one cares that it goes through her to get here and she’s not the light, she’s just my best friend.” Link’s voice cracked. “So does it make sense, maybe, for me to come back and see you like this? Do you maybe see what I might be asking you to do here?”

“It’s not the same, Link.”

“It’s the same to me,” and Revali turned his head over and met Link’s gaze. Next to him was the Great Eagle Bow, cleaned once again of blood. Sixty-six inches. Fifty pound draw. Trembling deerhorn sights. Skittering off and into the air as he fell, and then him on Medoh’s back, bleeding, and how can I look them in the face after this. 

“I’m not going back,” Revali said.

“What do you _mean_ you’re not.” 

“I mean precisely that. Let me ask you something, Link. Where do you think we are?”

“Is that what’s bothering you?” Link pursed his mouth. “We’re in the Canyon. We’ll get out.”

“And it would do nothing,” Revali said quietly, “because where we are doesn’t matter, as long as I am not in Rito Village. I don’t need to explain, do I? Her Highness is rather desperate for any of the other three to wake up, because then at least one domain would have some cause to celebrate. Luckily for her– luckily for everyone, actually– I graced them with my superior presence instead. Imagine what a welcome I would get. Imagine the returning Champion.” 

“You’re imagining _wrong_.” Link stared at him. “Zelda and I never wanted anything. Hylia, do you know what it was like for us a hundred years ago? It’s one of the first things I remembered, do you understand, running with her and knowing everyone was gone, I–”

“And you don’t have to watch this time. Simple, is it not?”

“No,” Link said. “Don’t.” 

Pain swamped Revali’s head; the bite of it went into his chest. “You want them back. Mipha. Urbosa. Daruk. Don’t tell me otherwise, why bother with all this, anyways? Too important a chess piece for Castletown to lose?”

“I just–” Link tried to get up, failed halfway, and sank back down again. “Of course. Of course I want them back, I dream about it every single night! But you asked me once what I looked like in that cave. Revali, I’m asking you now. Do you know what you looked like in that bed?”

“Hardly, since as you might not recall, I was mostly _comatose–_ ”

“I do.” 

The space between them was not enough. Link took a long and shuddering breath. Then, without looking up, he began to change the bandages in earnest: picking off the tape, folding up the gauze, then daubing the medicine onto every branch of the twisted black flesh underneath. For a while there was only Link’s hands moving with terrible gentleness between them, and everything else was drawn so tight that it was still. 

“I visited you,” Link said. “Every single day when you weren’t awake.”

Revali wanted to scoff— something about impossibilities, something about time. But underneath all the shame something small and tender was unfolding, quickly, and then there was so much of it that his voice could only come out as a whisper. “I don’t understand.”

“You don’t have to understand. Just please. Go back. I got you enough medicine to last the whole way.”

The dome of the tent above him had filtered out the sky. Revali didn’t trust himself to say anything else until Link’s hands stopped moving at last, and the pain had faded into a blur. Propping himself up, he pressed around the edge of the bandages. They were more than expertly done. 

“Link,” he said, soft. “Dying for Vah Medoh would have been easy, if I knew that I’d fulfilled my duty.”

And Link stared at him, still kneeling, and went completely white. 

* * *

They couldn’t stay in the Canyon. There was only one set of supplies between them now, and since the cliffs around them were riddled with sniper points, Revali refused to let them camp in one place. Within a week he was up and staggering, enough for them to reroute yet again. The tracks had been destroyed in the litany of explosions. There was nothing to do but to search for a way out as they went. They needed a low enough slope to climb; they needed a low enough slope for anything.

So they followed the smell of the ocean to the West, where the waves pounded the earth to searock. The sky was a misty river above them, and in the scattered moments of the journey on foot, Revali found himself missing his horse– but only because she had a nice name. He asked Link one night if the horses would know their way home. He received a single nod and nothing else.

Link had stopped speaking after the conversation in the tent. It was little consolation that the wound had slowed its spread, because even though the silence was far from cold, the only interaction they had was in the evenings, when Link stood outside the single tent and waited for Revali to acquiesce. Then, after dressing the wound with a deadened efficiency, Link would walk right back out to sleep on the rocks. That particular habit had stopped on the first day they saw the ocean’s gleam, when Revali got up without swaying from blood loss and sat pointedly outside the tent for twelve hours straight. So they took shifts.

Revali slept from evening to midnight, and Link from midnight to morning. It hurt enough that they’d returned to the uneasy limbo that Revali remembered before the Calamity; hurt even more when Link wouldn’t look him in the eyes, even though he slept in a bed that still held Revali’s warmth. But moping paid no debts. It was four days’ worth of care, and after the boomerang had come so close to Link’s neck, Revali spent every night going over what he would say and how he would say it, while fluffing the pillows in the moments before Link’s shift. 

Revali smoothed the bedding one more time, then poked his head out and checked the stars. Just before midnight, and Link was still walking around somewhere. Yesterday they’d come to the jagged spires along the Western mouth, and in the air was the smell of a cold and seasalt autumn. Revali had spotted a promisingly flat bluff to the north of their camp, secluded enough for more practice, and he tamped down on the surge of guilt as he shrugged on the archery vest. The sea wind would ensure a tougher training no matter what. And now, more than ever, it was a matter of personal pride. 

Halfway to the bluff, Revali glimpsed a tiny figure crouching in the shadow of a spire. Link. Revali ruffled himself, ready to protest or defend, but there was no movement in response, no drowning look in the eyes. He drew closer and saw why. 

Link was hunched over the sword, head pillowed on his forearms. The fists were clenched so hard that the knuckles had turned white, and even in rest, his body was an arc of agitation. The ears twitched once, twice. Link made a small noise in his sleep. 

The small tender thing in Revali’s chest began to unfold again. He took off the bows and sat down, and with a tiny push from the back, Link lolled easily onto Revali’s unwounded side. The sword slid out from his lap. Revali shifted his position, and when there was no movement for certain, he began to pick at Link’s ponytail– slowly, quietly. It was minutes before the elastic rolled off without a catch, and as the soft hair went loose, the tiny figure at his side slackened a fraction more. Revali folded his wing around them both. 

It was the right position to make everything look like an accident. As if Revali had sat down to meditate and Link had slumped over in his sleep, all an accident until Link made another noise and Revali felt arms wrap around his waist. He froze. Checked again. Still asleep, and the cheeks were still wet. Revali stayed there with the sounds of a midnight ocean all around him, and then gently touched his chin to the top of Link’s head. He tried not to let his heart pound too much. Link was very warm.

When the sky was no longer fully black, Revali lifted his wing to ease some of the numbness. Then there was a stirring, and it was danger, danger, danger, because they had been nestled so perfectly together that surely Link must have heard the heartbeat. Surely he must have felt it. Revali had to speak now or there was no covering it up, so he bent his head and murmured, “you forgot your shift.” 

“Sorry,” Link said, muffled. He didn’t let go.

Revali’s chest hurt again. “You’ve remembered how to speak. Don’t you apologize for that.”

“I apologize for whatever I want.”

“I stand corrected. Apologize away.”

Link didn’t say anything else. Revali’s wing was still around him, but Link was looking towards the mouth of the Canyon that led to the sea. It gave Revali the courage to go on.

“I am astounded,” he said, “at how incapable you and her Highness are at being anything but utterly and moronically selfless.”

There was a shake of the head. “I’m not selfless.”

“You certainly hide it well enough,” Revali said, clearing his throat. “Link. I wished to— apologize. That I cannot grant your request, or that I repaid your charity in the tent as such.”

Link breathed out against him. “Don’t worry about it.”

“I might offer something else in exchange.”

“Okay. I’m listening.”

The tone was quiet and careful, and Revali’s own voice raised a little more in response. “Before you hear it, you should know I won’t accept your refusal,” he said, and once he began the words wouldn’t stop. “It’d be absurd after these last few days, no? Very well. If you choose to stay silent so be it.

“I am willing to teach you– everything that I remember from a hundred years ago. Rito tactics, Hylian military formations, all the past warfronts across Hyrule. Call it paranoia if you wish, Link, but you _must_ learn how to read a true battleground, and not expend yourself in these meager little skirmishes. I won’t accept charity from you or the Queen. There’s enough of that already. But there may come a day when you won’t be able to rely on my aim.” Revali’s throat had gone tight and hot. “You understand what I am asking. It is imperative you agree.”

The arms let go of his waist at last, and as Link turned around, his hair still loose, shame rushed up into Revali’s face. As always, none of it had come out the way he wanted.

“When do we start?” Link asked.

Revali blinked. “What?”

“When do we start,” Link said with sudden fierceness, “because no one’s ever told me about the war. Zelda can’t talk about it. Impa doesn’t remember. They’re my memories, too, but if you’re talking payment, forget it, cause that’s the absolute last thing I want from you.”

“You can’t be serious,” Revali said, “those four days–”

“Nothing. You understand? I want nothing. If you really want to be in my debt so bad, just promise me this won’t happen again. I’ll learn if it makes me stronger. I’ll give it everything I’ve got, cause if you’re not going back, then we’re in this together. I’m not leaving you again.”

Revali looked at him, stunned. Link’s eyes were hard and bright in the dawning sun, and there were scars all along his collar. The swordsmanship in battle had been perfect; the hands that daubed the blood from Revali’s feathers had been rough with countless calluses. And in a single breath, Revali was reminded of who exactly he had under his wing right now, closer than anyone had been before.

“We were rivals once,” he said. “Do you remember?”

Link frowned. “Zelda mentioned it.” 

“Then why not make the promise a duel,” and Link’s mouth opened slightly as Revali ruffled himself in the charade. “We’re more than enough to match each other, don’t you think? So we’ll finish this as fast as you say. After having _me_ as your instructor, I daresay we might even be on equal grounds. I certainly won’t be helping you out with a handicap.” 

“A duel with you.” Link’s gaze darted to Revali’s chest, then to the bows. His ears went red. “Um. Okay, wow.” 

“Oh yes,” Revali hummed. " _Wow_ indeed," and they settled into an easy quiet as the sunlight started to seep in around the pillar. It was only broken by the occasional caw of a seagull, the steady washing of waves. If this was peace, perhaps Revali could get used to it, despite the numbness. He'd been sitting here for five or six hours– and in the end it was a small price to pay.

"You know," Link piped up, just as Revali had started to relax. "I didn’t know they allowed such huge cuccos to fight. I mean, I thought we put in a cruelty law.”

“ _Cuccos?_ ”

“Huge ones,” Link said, nodding. “And brainless like you wouldn’t believe. There’s a really stubborn one that’s insisting on teaching me military tactics, actually. Probably cause it doesn’t know enough archery.”

Revali took a very long and deep breath. “Link,” he said. “As Champion of Rito Village, allow me to tell you a story about my home.” 

“Oh _wow_ ,” and Revali pecked him on the head, but Link leaned back in after dodging away. Revali swallowed against the rush of heat. 

“Very well. Once upon a time, when I was a chick, the Village held a poll on whether or not to paint a bullseye on our statue of the Goddess. It was a joke for a festival, see. Curious how such things get so far. But in the end, when the votes were dumped out and counted, do you know how close we came to blasphemy?”

“One vote,” Link said in a smiling voice. 

“It was two.” Revali paused. “They caught me voting twice.”

And Link buried his face in Revali’s chest and just laughed. 

Revali would return to this moment, over and over, when he looked back on what happened between them. There were too many little things that tied it together. Maybe the seeds had been planted when they first crossed blows at the Village. Maybe it had been the cooking. Maybe it was even the relief that this Link would never ignore him as he did before. But all things aside, it was the first time Link had laughed since he’d cleaned Revali’s feathers of blood, and it was a sound that Revali had never expected to hear– never thought he might grow to want to hear– in more than one hundred years of a hard and lonely life.

The thing in his heart unfolded all the way. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> as a bit of trivia, every instance of link's combat in this fic is technically possible in botw (apart from details like slicing lizalfos to pieces.) This chapter included the Thunderclap Rush, Bomb Parrying, and Parry Cancels/Attacks! 
> 
> thank you @ sarcasticmudkip for the wonderful beta again! see yall in 2ish weeks haha fuck
> 
> edit, 11/04: sorry guys, i'm taking an extra week to update with all crazy stuff going on in life and ALSO in this story. i also wanted to get the writing down at least 4-5 chapters ahead for consistency, since the plot (and their relationship) will be getting more complex from hereon out. Thank you all for the support <3


	6. what you could lose

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> trying out multiple POVs in this chapter. concrit welcomed!

It was the little things that got to Link. He’d only allowed himself to love the little things when he was in the wild, because loving too big was dangerous when you knew what you could lose. Hyrule was one big thing. The sword and its glow was another. Zelda was the last and most recent, and he’d never been so reminded of her true nature than when the labs’ tests had failed a few weeks ago. They’d been standing outside Naboris with the Gerudo guard, the red dirt whipping around their heels, when she’d put her hands on the main terminal directly and– unleashed. 

The blast had been bright enough to turn the Gerudo Highlands gold. It hadn’t been bright enough for Urbosa. 

Link had thought of Revali the moment the light died. He was going to be late– half a day at the most— and he’d been right when Zelda had pronounced their next course of action, holding herself up on Naboris’ deadened gates. She was to make one final attempt: a pilgrimage to the three sacred springs, then a prayer ceremony on the year’s last lunar eclipse. All five realms in attendance. She’d need a guard, they’d need to ask the Gerudo– and Link had presided over the meeting, trading small jabs with Riju, trying to ignore how her eyes were ringed with both powder and insomnia, the colors of a Thunderhelm that still proved far too big.   
  
Zelda had pulled him aside afterwards. “Link,” she’d whispered. “Whether we know for sure or not, you have to be back by then. You can’t keep doing this, I can’t help you forever–”

“I know,” he’d said, hands over his face. “I’ll do it, Urbosa, she’d understand,” and then he’d told her about the massacre at the outpost. Told her where they’d be going next. She’d gone grim, golden-lipped but not surprised, because her dreams were darkening as well. No Shrines moving forwards, so a part of him had thought of it as escape when he went back. Half a day late. Just half a day. Then– the shattered camp. Then the blur of the Canyon.

He’d paid four whole days in exchange. Wonderment and fear and please no, please no, until Revali had looked at him with a warrior’s resolve about Medoh, and Link’s throat had closed up like a vice. He hadn’t known why he’d woken up under the pillar, hadn’t known why his arms had moved on their own, but after he’d leaned against that stuttered apology, Link had drawn Revali’s wing away from his waist, then pushed him into the tent for another check of the bandages. His real mission had come out then, helplessly – the Slate, the Shrine network, the reports about the darkness – and Link had expected, no, _wanted_ a reaction of flat ice. But Revali had only held the Slate between two fingers, then reached over and tapped it on Link’s head. “So that’s where you’ve been running off to, hm? And to think I believed her Highness when she called this an artifact.”

“It _is_ an artifact, Zelda gave up when I kept stealing from the display case,” Link said, and his heart flipped as Revali choked back a laugh. “You’re not mad?”

“Irritated at its selective usefulness, but hardly _mad_ ,” Revali tapped at the Slate, and an elixir bottle froze, pinging. “You forget that I was Rito Champion, once, in a war that took us all by surprise. Any mention of darkness deserves quite a bit more attention than this.” The bittersweet gaze slid away. “In any case I’m– flattered, Link. That you could’ve gone back at any time, if not for my scintillating company.” 

“Seeing you on horseback was pretty scintillating, all right,” Link said, and he’d yelped as a bandage roll flew at his face. That had devolved into a small war of tossing bits of medical supplies at each other until Link had finally given up and let himself be pelted with elixir bottle caps. “This does _not_ count towards the duel,” he’d said, picking one out of his collar. Revali was already leaning back, luxuriant victory. “But it’s fine if you can’t use the Shrines. Plenty of other ways to return later, though something tells me you shouldn’t try wind-bombing.”

“Wind-bombing?” Revali asked.

Link told him. In the following volley of bottle caps again, Revali had promptly banned any version of wind-bombing in his vicinity, and Link had caught some very loud muttering about “insults to true flight.” But once Link had got up to take his lookout shift at last, a touch had brushed against the small of his back, light enough to be imagination, and precisely where the bruises from his last wind-bombs had just started to fade. Link had sat outside the tent and listened to Revali’s breathing across the canvas, tracing the outline of that touch. 

They got around to the lowest point of the cliffs a week later, tracing the beach along the bluffs. It was no use; they weren’t getting up even with climbing, and Revali had shaken his head, silent, when Link asked if he could try for one of the higher ledges. There was a new goal, now, and a new routine. They slotted it together without effort: Revali went off to forage in the mornings, Link hunting in the afternoons, and then together they scouted along the beach, trying to look at the cliffs and not at each other in the evenings. Lessons and another check of the healing wound came in the night. 

The stress of getting up there made moments like this almost pleasant. Revali was at his side, looking for pebbles in the water for some reason, and if this had been a different time— five years ago— Link would’ve considered enjoying how the ocean washed around his ankles, how the fish waited before darting in the tide. But then again, he hadn’t had time back then, either. The Slate was showing no movement as he scanned the cliffs; the prickling and the tracks had melted into nothing but rock. They’d have to get back around after the cliffs, probably, and at that Link scrubbed his face and groaned. 

Revali looked over, sorting through the pebbles on one palm. “I didn’t think you’d be so miserable taking pictures.”

“Not pictures,” Link said. “Job.” He waved the Slate. “I’m being responsible for once. Unless— does the great Revali _want_ to take a picture?” 

He lifted it up in threat, and Revali hopped backwards, splashing. “No. _No_ . Absolutely not. The last time anyone pointed that thing at me, the results were _decidedly_ less than satisfactory.” He sniffed. “Some other parties had a rather tasteless sense of humor.” 

Link grinned; he never knew there was a _picture_ of Revali lying around, and with that he swapped functions and aimed. “Hold still, I swear you’re in really capable hands–”

“ _No_ ,” Revali hissed, and Link really would’ve chased after him had the bandages not been freshly changed, and had Revali not looked as if he were about to trip into the water already. Though that wouldn’t be such a bad picture either, he mused, aiming idly again just to make Revali sputter, only for the camera to focus on something in the distance. 

“Hang on.” Link magnified the focus– it was some kind of structure. He swapped into Stasis, and oh, the structure was _movable._ “Wow,” Link said. “Oh wow, finally, Revali, come _on_ ,” and he was off dashing through the waves, ignoring Revali’s look of open bewilderment because he’d got used to that one ages ago. Within minutes he was at the far end of the beach, panting, as a long dark line of hulking shipwrecks stretched out into the distance, their yawning hulls broken on the rocks. Wooden. Dry. And good, in fact, for _burning._

Link was almost vibrating by the time Revali arrived, though somehow it got even better when Revali listened to his plan to torch Hyrule’s most priceless and long-lost artifacts, and just said: “innovative, though I wonder what you’ll tell her Highness later on.” 

“We’ll burn _one_ artifact, she gave me an allowance.” Link let the levity die away as he gazed up at the ledges like a staircase: one last step before the opposite side of Hyrule, hope or dread or excitement mixing together in his chest. He nudged Revali’s shoulder. “Tell me you’ll be okay getting up there.”

“I don’t know anyone else who frets so much.” Revali’s voice took on that strange tone again. “I’ll be more than all right, rest assured. Now what about you and that Rito paraglider, hm?”

“I can climb if the updraft fails.”

“Fascinating,” Revali said, looking up at the ledges, judging the distance. There was the slightest nudge back. “Though something tells me you may not have to.” 

* * *

It would be a few days before they could drag all the driftwood into place, which worked just well enough for Revali’s next steps. He sorted out the larger pebbles, glancing over occasionally as Link took down the vicious traps around their camp. The black wound had stopped fully bleeding by the time they’d spent a few futile weeks on the beach, but Link had assured him of the traps’ effectiveness regardless– one of the many precautions he’d started taking on the next leg of their journey– not that Revali needed protection, of course. 

Less effective, in the meantime, were the lessons. Link had stared at yesterday’s Hylian turtle defense for at least an hour. “How are these harder than the Shrine puzzles, it’s just _diagrams–_ ” 

“ _Diagrams_ with great tactical significance,” Revali had said, long-suffering, “it’ll be significantly worse once you _do_ start learning from Hyrule’s archives. But tell me about these Shrine puzzles,” and after Link told him about the various torturously inefficient puzzles he’d gone back and solved after the Sealing (mostly by bombing himself over to the monks,) Revali had said “hmm,” because the Resurrection Shrine had swung a smidgen harder than expected. 

“Come here, hero,” Revali said when Link was done with the traps. He set the pebbles on a large and flat piece of rock, opened up the Slate’s map, and began sketching the outline of Hyrule Field with a stick of chalk. Then a hand brought out two sparkling stones from inside his vest; one a deep verdant green, the other an unfathomable blue, both rounded and cool from an eternity in the tide. Revali gave the blue one to Link. “We’re trying something new.” 

“Thank you,” Link said. “It’s very pretty.” 

Revali exploded into a ball of feathers. “No,” he said, “ _no,_ I just found them in the same tidepool, sweet Hylia, don’t you– it _represents_ you, because Rito or not, our traditional methods of learning have gone right over your head.” He waved a hand at the stone, desperate. “The board represents a battle, the green stone will represent me, we’ll start with theoretical formations,” and after Revali spent another twenty minutes explaining the rules of the game, smoothing out his feathers, Link nodded, picked up his Champion piece, and lost five matches in a row. 

“I don’t understand,” Link muttered, looking at the board through his fingers. Revali rearranged the pieces and hummed a little tune. “ _How_.”

“Quite simple.” Revali sketched out another location on the Tabantha Tundra from memory— Link’s Slate had left the Hebra blank. “There are always two aspects to combat. The first is power or technique: your sword, my archery, your gift, and so on. Good for individual battles, more than enough to secure a victory.” He gestured to the board. “Now there’s the second. Positioning. Timing. Geography. As the enemy, I’ll succeed in learning from my mistakes: knowing not only _when_ to move, but _where_ to move. Underneath or over, striking where it’s least expected. Both sides must know the movement of war.”

Link sat back, crossed his arms. “I see,” he said, slowly. “So that’s how you took out those lizalfos by yourself. You went off the edge for it. Height, positioning, or something more?”

“You–” Revali looked at him with real surprise. “Yes. For advanced aerial archery, of course, a variation,” and Link tossed the green stone and frowned through his explanation. It was enough for Revali to wonder if he might’ve said too much– but his practices stayed hidden over the next few days, and the Gale could at least work with the ocean wind. Good enough for other purposes; not nearly good enough for him. 

In the meantime, Link slowly stopped losing his entire stock. Revali was right about that part, of course: the little knight needed something in front of him to learn, even better if there was an opponent, and by the end of the week he was picking things up much faster than Revali had dared to expect. “It’s like trying on an old jacket that still fits,” Link explained one night, as they scaled a couple of ocean fish for dinner. “I know I was good at this before. I know part of me liked it.” 

“And do you think you’ll remember anything from these games?” Revali asked.

“Probably not,” Link said. He skewered two porgies and then left them to a crackling roast over the fire. “It’s been ages since I’ve had a flashback of any sort. Zelda– was weakening too quickly, back then. I still don’t actually _know_ what I don’t remember.”

“Mm. I see."

“Hey.” Link gave Revali the first cooked one off the fire, still flaking and delicious. “I don’t mind. I wanted to go over this because the memories are mine, but I think– what’s important is what people choose to do. Not what they remember. That’s kind of the only thing that matters in the moment, isn’t it?” 

Revali took the porgy and ate it. Accomplishments, then– what he did. Link was looking at him as he ate, something in his face desperately sad, and maybe it was Link’s expression that made those pieces move into a particular order a few nights later. The sadness and the little unspoken brushes that went on between them, as if making sure that the other was still there. Time was sliding away. The driftwood pile was building up faster than Link’s instinct for positioning, and it didn’t help, too, that Revali was reeling from the intensity of this new tenderness springing up inside him, the intensity of that calamitous defeat looming every night. So easily repeated. So easily remembered. 

“I thought we did this one before,” Link said when Revali was finished, gazing at the formation. It was the day before they were to set off again, and both of them were tense with anticipated travel, mouths dry with seasalt. “It’s the Rito Village layout. You showed me once.” 

“Not quite,” Revali said, and he tried to put his green Champion stone down and couldn’t.

Link looked up. “You okay?” 

Revali looked at the stone, then placed it down in the center. “Yes. You’ve done well these last few matches. Well enough for us to move on– we’ll be looking at actual battles from the war now. The movements, decisions, and mistakes that were made.” 

“Sounds good,” Link said. Where do we begin?”

“Here,” Revali gestured. “My journey from Lanayru Gate to Rito Village. The first caveat of this game is that you can only use the green Champion piece. The second is that the route will end at Vah Medoh. My death.”

“You–” Link said, the line of his mouth broken. “These matches, going forwards. They’re not just my memories. You can’t.” 

“I have to,” Revali said, and the core of him shivered at the memory of red light. “Link, I gave you my word that I would teach you everything if we moved forwards. This is everything. We’ll start with the battle I know most intimately and then work backwards from there. You wanted to know if I had dreams, didn’t you? They’re not dreams; they’re nightmares. And one of them,” he paused, “how do you say– _altered_ my focus during the battle in the Canyon. Naturally I prefer that it not happen in the future.”

“And what, you want me to go through what happened, knowing I’m going to lose?” Link shook his head, pushed the piece away. “I’m not doing it. I’m not losing any pieces. It’s you.” 

“Link,” Revali said. He motioned for the small hand, then pressed the stone onto the center of the palm with what leftover gentleness he could muster now. “You won’t lose,” he said, softer. “I’ll guide you, merciful as I am, and I trust that neither of us want to go into the next battle with the same blindspots. And correct me if I’m wrong, but this stone doesn’t appear to have a beak or feathers, does it?” 

“No,” Link said steadily, slowly. “It doesn’t. Okay. Just let me— here,” and he shuffled over at right angles to the board, no directness to gaze across. Their knees brushed. Revali nodded and took a breath.

“Good,” he said. “Come then, I’ll walk you through.” 

For the next two hours, Revali tore apart every single move on the road that had led to his death, speaking in that same warm, unreachable voice. Link moved the stone across the board as he did so– and even though there were pauses, here and there, Revali’s voice did not break and his choices did not falter. Rito sentries, monsters, Guardians, and all else, weighing just as much as the pebbles that they pushed around that small slab of rock. Weighing even less than his bow. Link listened to the whole thing, silent as he was in Revali’s memories, and when Revali was done and the green stone was at the chalk circle of Vah Medoh, Link shuffled a little closer and leaned against the crook of Revali’s wing again. Unspoken. 

“Thanks for letting me win,” he said.

Revali picked up the green stone covered in chalk dust. He felt shivery, as if he’d broken through every earthly thing at once, though he still hadn’t put down anything for the Blight. Couldn’t yet. “Mm,” he said to the lean. “Accomplishment enough for you, I suppose?”

“It’s not really about that,” Link said, and Revali watched as he took the green stone and tucked it away into his pocket. “You know. ” 

“Then let me hear it.”

“Accomplishments,” Link said, propping his chin on his knuckles, flushed and drawn and strangely intense. “I don’t care about them. Or– I don’t care about the results of what anyone did. I just care about what they chose.” He looked to the side, as if he could see the ocean through the walls of the tent. “I remember choosing to die with Zelda, back then. On Blatchery Field, when it was over.” 

“Over,” Revali echoed. “You?” 

“Me,” Link said after a moment. “It’s over when you have to choose what to give up. When the choice is too big, or when you leave things behind. I remember leaving Zelda behind in the fires.” He hesitated. “I remember another time, too.”

“It’s not giving up,” Revali said, suddenly. “It’s– relinquishing, if you can call it that. The scars aren’t from the wilds?”

Link shook his head. “Guardians. Through... everywhere. The scars here, here, and this one, through the lungs.” He laughed. “If there was any relinquishing, it was Zelda and her gown. There was so much blood. I remember feeling _bad_ that there was so much blood. Then I wake up and I’m choking on slime.” He laughed again, and it sounded more real.

“Those monks,” Revali said. “First the eyes on the Guardians, then this... liquid. One wonders what they might’ve been thinking, dried up husks as they are. Not as if _we_ needed hydration.” 

“No, exactly,” Link said. “And the _eyes._ I have to get to them first, especially in the combat shrines.” He looked up at Revali. “You know they make those things in small versions, too? Like toys.” 

“ _Small_ versions,” Revali said with a touch of outrage, _small_ killing machines, and “Hylia, what’s even the point, then?” And Link scooted over, reached across Revali’s lap to draw out the Sheikah Slate, and showed him the album. They spent the next hour flicking through the many, many pictures that Link had apparently taken in various Shrine trials: a tiny frozen Guardian Link was about to smash with a sledgehammer, another one Link was about to toss into a lava pool, a last one sitting without legs, helpless, as Link jabbed at its hull with an electric spear.

“I don’t think there _is_ a point,” Link said after they’d gone through the spread of mayhem, comparing techniques. He leaned against Revali’s wing and lolled his head back, a touch of a smile. “But it makes it really easy to get creative. Bet you could launch them somehow, too.”

Revali tapped the Slate on Link’s head again, blooming warmth as Link batted him away, grabbing for it. “You really are patently ridiculous,” he said, and he looked down to see Link gazing at him, close and flushed and bright, and in the unearthly feeling that still lingered, the things they talked about like open wounds, Revali had a moment to think: absurd, he wasn’t going to, but maybe, if he leaned forward now, maybe–

“Hey,” Link said, breathlessly. “You know what’s my favorite kind of picture?” 

Revali watched the blush deepen further; wanted to trace it down. “Surprise me,” he said, and Link beamed. 

“No problem,” and he switched the Slate to self-portrait mode. “Smile!” 

Revali’s shriek echoed across the beach. 

* * *

“Don’t delete them,” Link said, standing next to the enormous driftwood pile with a fire arrow. In the brawl from last night, he’d captured exactly eleven pictures of Revali’s outraged horror from various angles, then a further five of himself being chased down the beach by a spitting ball of feathers. He mimed wiping away a tear. “I’m a poor, lost soul and those pictures are all I’ve got.”

“ _You_ ,” Revali said, “lost all privileges of using that expression last night. I’ll freeze you on those cliffs and throw you off. Stasis, was it?” He jabbed at the Slate and a block of ice erupted from the sea in the distance, twinkling.

“That counts as freezing,” Link told him, and shooed the glare away. “Back up, you’ll roast.” He stabbed the pile of driftwood and it went up in a blaze, breathing green smoke and sparks, and Link winced from the burst of heat. He opened up the paraglider. “You said you wanted me to go first– sure?”

“Oh yes, quite positive,” Revali tapped on the Slate. “The winds will be at their best.”

Link squinted at him. “Okay,” and he let his gaze drift to the highest ledge, waiting for a large enough updraft from the fire. Just before the heat became unbearable– Link had a fleeting thought of exactly how embarrassing it’d be to _burn to death_ in front of Revali– a withering blast of wind caught his glider right in the middle, flipped him, and sent him tearing into the sky. After a series of increasingly unceremonious flips, which might’ve involved some increasingly unceremonious screaming, Link caught one last breath of gentle air and floated down onto the grassy edge of the cliffs, unhurt. 

Revali drifted up a minute later and landed with ineffable grace. “Would you look at that– the winds _were_ at their best. Stronger than I expected, even.”

“Shut your beak and help me up,” Link muttered from the grass. “Glider malfunction.” And Revali leaned down and offered a wing, still smirking a bit as Link reached up to get a better hold. Then, in lingering dizziness, he grasped; missed. His fingers closed around the end of that white knitted scarf, and as the knot began to give way, Link realized abruptly that he’d made another mistake. 

Revali looked down. “You could’ve asked, you know.”

Link stared at the scarf around his fingers. It had come off too easily; the round Rito symbol was on the edge as it had always been.

“Though if you like it that much, I may allow you to keep it for a while. A souvenir, seeing as you’ve never been– it’s rather nice this time of the year, you couldn’t imagine all the snow.” 

“Revali,” Link said. “Revali.”

“Yes, Link?”

He should never have wanted to go forward. Around them was the first verdant edge of the land beyond Hyrule, forests everywhere like the best of Faron’s canopies, and so much fresh wilderness that tears might’ve gone down his cheeks. They’d need to explore, to go back and find those tracks. Deal with the eclipse, deal with the wound. But now Link was on the grass with the scarf in his hands, Revali leaning over, and all Link wanted to do was watch him look for more pebbles in the tide. 

“Let me,” Link said. He stood up and drew the scarf around Revali’s neck, not looking at him, and made two quick knots, one over the other, the fabric gentle under his fingers. “Better?” He asked. “It won’t fall off now.” 

“Yes, better,” Revali said, confused, bright, leaning. “But why all this?”

“It’s a little thing,” Link said.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> im committed to writing accurate + realistic depictions of trauma (i.e. this won't go away just bc revali's got fuzzy feelings) and much of this chapter was informed by my own experiences + my thesis research on traumatic memory. as always, would love to hear thoughts or suggestions for improvement!
> 
> thanks again to my beta sarcastic mudkip! the next chapter's gonna be a fun one, and i can't wait to share :)


	7. promising

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> what do you get when you mix online finals, covid, hwaoc, and a 13 hour time difference together?
> 
> a late chapter, that's what. *finger guns*

The forest was thick with vines and trailing roots, the canopy so dense that the light came down completely green. They’d kept to the edge of the Canyon at the start, but a couple days’ scouting told Revali that there was no use trying to get across– he and Link gazed out at Hyrule across the gap on the third morning and admitted that they were thoroughly stuck. Link rubbed a hand over his face. “You can’t glide over anyways, can you? Even with an updraft?”

“If I can’t do it, no Rito can,” Revali said, and they went back and hammered out yet another destination: a larger hill some ways further into the forest, maybe a few weeks’ travel out. It’d give them a vantage point, let them see further without having to trek the entire length of the gap again, and with that they set off hacking through the leaves, setting their traps up around the perimeter of the camps. 

It wasn’t long before they stopped going in a straight line. Link fidgeted constantly whenever they set up for the night, and when he started showing up late to the tactics lessons about three days in, Revali solved that particular mystery by catching him on the way back with two new species of glittering frogs stuffed into his pockets. Revali made a grab for them. Too late. The first was scanned into the Sheikah Slate, frantic, and the second was halfway into Link’s mouth– “no, trust me, watch this”– before Revali pounded it out of him.

“Unbelievable,” Revali muttered as the survivor hopped desperately away into the trees. “Five whole years like this and you still haven’t managed to poison yourself. This is what you’ve been showing up late for? Frogs?”

“You didn’t even see what it could do,” Link said, mutinous.

“I assure you I don’t need to.” Revali dusted off the Slate. It was him versus frogs. _Frogs_. “Don’t tell me you’re bored, hero, you’ve barely even managed to match me in Necluda."

“But we drew on Zorana last time," Link said. "You've gotta be a bit curious."

“No,” Revali said, abruptly, and then, “yes, all right fine. But frogs, of all things? At least have the decency to skip out next time for a dragon or a lynel.”

Link kicked the dirt, mouth pursed. “I _miss_ it,” he said. “The first time anyone’s been out here, we still don’t know how we’re gonna get back, the horses aren’t even here, and wow, you didn’t even name yours.” He paused. “Did you?”

“I’ll have you know that Vah Meadow is particularly fond of grass.”

Link nodded, solemn, then turned away and took a couple of deep breaths. “One minute,” he said. “The hero’s horse is usually named Epona, so Vah Meadow—”

“ _Epona_ ,” Revali said, bristling, because Meadow was a fine horse, if temperamental, but he could certainly understand that. “What kind of name is Epona? Clearly mine is superior in taste, elevated in subtlety–”

Link turned around. “My horse’s name is Epony.”

They looked at each other. “Link,” Revali said. “You cannot name your horse _Epony_ , she’s large enough to take down Hebra rhinos,” and then he caught Link’s face going red from holding it in, and said, instinctively, “it be _hooves_ me to correct you,” and that set them both off, followed by a whole string of puns back and forth that had Link laughing so hard that he had to lean on the sword, nigh-blasphemous, in a way Revali had never seen before. 

After Link assured him that the horses were definitely fine– _neigh_ , in _stable_ condition– Revali got up, still strangling his laughter, and waved one hand at the trees. “All right,” he said. “Show me where you found those frogs, hero. Hop to it.”

“Oh Hylia,” Link said, crumpling again, but he did eventually manage to lead Revali to a marsh about ten minutes away, choked full of flimsy reeds with the fireflies coming out in the evening. It was just the kind of area you could sit and eat by for a couple of languid hours, and Revali surveyed it with satisfaction.

“Excellent,” he said. “We can combine exploring and lessons in one. Walk me through your approach to this landscape with Hylian or Rito troops, assuming one squadron each, moblins on the other side. You can look for frogs as we go.”

“I–” Link said, blinking up at him. “That’s perfect,” and Revali let him tramp delightedly around the marsh for a couple more hours, and not only did Link _not_ fall into the trap of using Rito troops under a canopy, he actually augmented the explanation with things Revali himself had missed: a makeshift trench in the ground here, a patch of sinking mud there. They went back late at night, Revali helplessly ruffled with some quiet pride, and Link nudging him and making more puns about wings and feathers– but that was a losing fight with the master.

So that was the new plan: Link set up an enormous perimeter of traps around their camp and off they went– clean watering holes, alcoves for shelter, more hills to look out from, all fair game. Here and there they came across enormous carved monuments with swirls etched into them, in the shapes of dragons and eagles and lions. Link took pictures for Impa and the other historians back at Castletown, and then tried to take more pictures of him, but if Revali wasn’t able to run then he was able to glare, and that was enough to dissuade the more embarrassing attempts at the very least. 

But when Link wasn’t chasing him with the camera or setting traps, they were talking. After he’d broken through the battle to Vah Medoh, the other ones somehow came easier, like he’d crested a peak to reach the downhill slope. They went through those on the easier days when there was more walking and less hacking of ferns, and when Revali faltered they turned to Link’s life back at Castletown: Paya and Symin were good drinking friends, apparently, but after a couple more conversations, Revali found that he couldn’t return Link’s escapades with very many of his own– because, to put it rather bluntly, he didn’t have friends.

“You can’t not have friends,” Link waved the sword at him. “You’re hiding them.”

“Where, under my wings?” Revali snorted. “Being Rito Champion does happen to cut into one’s spare time. Do you really think I wouldn’t have friends if I wanted to?”

“Right,” Link said, “It’s your stunning sense of modesty,” and he dodged Revali’s grab. “No, seriously, think about it. Stay a little longer in Castletown and I can introduce you to everyone. You threw yourself out the moment you could walk, last time, and I wasn’t kidding when I said Zelda was going to skin you.”

“And are you so eager to keep me in New Castletown, Link?”

Link looked down. “No,” he said. “I wouldn’t stop you from leaving if you wanted to, but if you stayed, I think– some of the kids might like it. A lot of them like birds. And stories about the Champions, sure.”

“A lot of them like birds,” Revali repeated, and Link went red and muttered something unintelligible. But later that night as Revali sat outside the tent, stitching up the fraying Champion ribbon, he thought about it more. Stories and friends. 

Hylia. He missed them. Beyond all reason and excuse, he missed them and what they could’ve been because _they_ were the ones he’d known the best— the only ones who had approached him in intensity; and even if didn’t miss them, Link was about to ask anyway. No avoiding it. And you couldn’t talk about Urbosa without the lightning that broke over Gerudo, couldn’t talk about Daruk without impenetrable Goron defense. Mipha at least had kept the hearts wrought in steel on her wrists. Revali’s Gale was a painful and poorly hidden secret; Link would ask soon enough.

Revali skirted the topic the next morning in an attempt to meet the blow, but when Link nodded through the entire conversation without a single speck of curiosity, Revali said helplessly, “isn’t there anything else you want to know about?” 

“You mean when we’ll start practicing together?” Link asked. “I know you’ve been getting better, but you still can’t push it. Just take your time. I don’t mind, really.” 

Revali’s stomach twisted. Just ask me, he wanted to howl, ask me because I can’t tell you myself– it’s broken, it’s been broken, and I haven’t been able to fix it, would you just _ask_ , but in the end, he said, “yes, I suppose you’re right,” and cleaned his bow with the last drops of icy polish.

And as the days stretched on, Link continued not to ask. Not just about the Gale, but about the others, too: he just kept humming and nodding even when Revali stumbled over the other three names, listening with a purposeful nonchalance that lasted until they went over a higher knoll one shining morning, the series of traps in hand, only for a vast savannah to roll open on the forest’s opposite side. The grasses grew long and golden, the wind rippling the field like it was a blanket to shake out, and beyond the distant slumbering cliffs lay a glorious blue sky. 

Link set down his pack. “It reminds me of the desert,” he said, wandering a couple of steps out. “Was she really that good?” 

Revali met his gaze against the sky, blue on blue, and imagined the air shattering with thunder. “Not that she’d ever use such terminology,” he said, slowly, because how she’d laugh to hear him crowing her praises now. “But yes. She was that good. Very few could match her in force of authority, and her grasp on the necessary psychology was– unparalleled.” 

Link nodded. “I only remember a few conversations. But she seemed really stable, like the kind of person who could understand anything you were trying to say.” He broke into a grin. “Makes me wonder what happened to you.”

“First of all,” Revali said mildly. “Urbosa’s record was thirteen Noble Pursuits in two hours, not that there was anything especially noble about the aftermath.” 

“Thirteen,” Link choked, “my record’s three and a half,” and the dam broke just like that. Not that Zelda didn’t know about their less-than-glorious exploits– she’d got up to plenty of trouble on her own back then– but Link had apparently been starving for these tiny intimate stories about their past. Now he drank in Revali’s every embellished tale like a dog that had finally been allowed to eat on command, and as the conversation drifted to Urbosa’s approach on the battlefield, Revali found that he couldn’t deny that next look of hope, too.

Revali restrung the Eagle Bow that night. He was out of time. Combat loomed over them, and Link had taken Urbosa’s Fury into the tactics almost seamlessly, barely even needing Revali’s explanation. They’d talked about lightning in the desert skies all the way back to camp– and Revali had nothing but a Gale that sputtered out before its peak, and a ribbon that wouldn’t stop trembling on his bow. He couldn’t even be jealous. It didn’t make sense to be jealous when she was gone and he wasn’t, it wasn’t fair to either of them, but how could he _still_ have nothing after all this time, even when he’d almost lost that battle, how, how, how– and with that he went to another clearing, pushed the Gale into a roaring hurricane, and promptly tore himself open again. 

It was a small tear along the stitches, barely anything compared to the initial prickling gush, but Revali still turned his head over when Link opened the bandages and sucked in the air through his teeth.

“Revali,” he said. “You promised me.”

“You say it as if I intended for this to happen.”

“Did we go too fast yesterday? You were fine climbing up here, so when,” Link said, then he checked the wound again and seemed to immediately fold. “This morning. No– don’t tell me. You leave every morning. It matches the way you spread your wings.”

“Training,” Revali said, finally, and Link’s grip went tight.

“So all this time, alone.” Link gave his wing a small shake. “You’re unbelievable, you know that, Revali?”

“Yes yes,” he said. “Go on, I’m here.”

“Yeah wow, guess you are,” Link said. “I spent this entire time thinking you were avoiding practice because you were hurt, talking about board games and Champion tactics, and then I come back and find this? You _promised_ me. Back there!” 

“I promised you,” Revali said, sitting up. He was speaking faster, hotter, the words uncontrollable. “But I promised for battles. Not practice. Were you perhaps born with that sword in your hand, Link? I’ve heard stories that you were, I believe them. Everything I taught you and memorized, my archery, that positioning– do you know exactly what it took to get where I was? Where I am?”

“I _don’t_ know,” Link said, almost snarling, and another small tug brought them in close enough to whisper. “But I know you. And if you push too hard, that blackness is gonna reach your blood for real. Zelda’s not here, our traps are set to spring at anything remotely near the camp, and we are _looking_ to stumble on whatever’s holding a broadsword. If your practice gets you like this, I don’t care what fucking happens. I’m going in on my own _._ ”

“You’re _not_ ,” Revali spat, “and I _won_ ’ _t_ ,” and that led to an unfortunate quietness over the next couple days as they stayed on top of the hill so he could recover. Not that he cared so much about Link’s opinion– but he did, of course he fucking did– except Link would look at him going off in the mornings to what they both knew was more practice, then spend extra time at night brushing medicine over the wound. He thought nothing would happen. They’d just stay like that for another hundred years, maybe, then Revali prodded a pebble into a choke point one night, Link fiddling with the Slate across, and the skies outside the tent lit up in a blazing orange glow. The smell of charred heartwood rushed into the air. 

“Fire,” Link said, jolting up, and Revali’s hand shot to Link’s shoulder. 

“No,” he said, because that heartwood smell was cleaner than anything else in this world. “It’s her, come on,” and as Link’s expression opened up once again, Revali drew off the Falcon bow and nocked. 

They ducked out of the tent just in time to see the great coiling dragon loom down from its portal, heading towards them in a splendid dance from the heavens, wreathed in rolls of sacred flame. A howling wind had kicked up, and the grasses were beginning to catch, the sparks whirling their way to the tent. Link stared up at it. “This is definitely payback for the ships,” he said. “It’s so close, I’ve never seen it so close–” 

“Pick,” Revali said, drawing two ice arrows. He shot down the nearest rushes of flame to their camp, the fireballs dissipating into steam. The roaring was immense. “We need to keep the camp from burning, _pick right now!_ ” 

“Pick _what_ —“ 

“Pick what you want from Dinraal,” Revali raised his voice against the shrieking wind, “ _because I refuse to apologize for training!_ ” And with that he opened his wings on instinct, drawing on the updraft, and soared upwards in delicious swoops and rolls, because only the dragons’ wind could match the Gale– he almost felt sorry he’d shot it for his Champion trials. He dodged through the fireballs, swooped down, “ _pick_ , _damn you_ ,” and shot by just as Link turned around, the bandages stretching, Link’s delighted laugh echoing through his chest. Swirling in midair, he saw Link looking up at him, hands cupped around his mouth, and for a moment both of them were caught in the great celestial glow. 

“You still have to apologize,” Link shouted, “but I use the horns for elixirs!” and Revali could only shake his head because of course Link had already done this, sweet Hylia, the little knight’s idea of convenient travel was to blow himself to pieces.

He plummeted, swept around Link again, murmured by his ear, “ _f_ _ine_ ,” and then drew up to the dragon’s crest. An arrow sped to the tip of the dragon’s horn, sparkling, and the shard went spiraling down like a promise into the inferno by their camp. Revali dove down into the searing heat, just as Link cupped his hands around the shard with the light burning through the gaps in his fingers.

“Get the tent, get the tent,” Link gasped, the dragon’s maw flashing flames above them, and Revali used that last burst of wind to hurtle back to where their tent was, collapsing it, and once it was down Link stumbled over and picked up his pack, and they got out just as the entire top of the hill melted into a sea of heartwood flame.

* * *

"But yes,” Revali said, scrubbing the soot off his feathers. “That’s how they asked me to prove my worth, not that they would’ve known about your own habit of shooting deified snakes. You see now why training is a habit?”

They’d spent the night trekking to a small waterfall, scattering the deer that had come to drink from the pool. When they were done gulping down enough water to frankly drown themselves instead, Link had crossed his arms and looked at him, pretending to be unimpressed, and Revali had managed to eke out some half-muttered apology for breaking the promise, (though not for training, never.) But the forgiveness came easy and quick. Link had snuck glances at the dragon horn the whole time they drank and talked, smiling, and when he pocketed it– the night threatening to end– Revali had grasped for another story, any story, and landed on the Champion trials. The sheer absurdity of Sheikah monks telling him to shoot a quasi-deity in the face, thank Hylia, was enough to get him that familiar warm look.

Link rolled over on the grassy bank, holding his glowing pouch to the sky. “The Rito are an interesting race.”

“Indeed. No royalty, no pomp, no grandeur. What you do is the only thing that counts.” Revali surprised them both with a laugh. “I could hardly blame them in the end.”

“All of them?” 

“Not as if I’d know anyone else these days.”

Link propped himself up on his elbows and shuffled over to where Revali was sitting on the bank, the cool water around his legs. “I’m friends with another Rito,” Link said. “A bard I met on my journeys. His name’s Kass.”

“A bard?”

“A travelling one,” Link said. “He helped me a lot in the beginning. Mostly just telling me where to go, which Shrines to hit. You– might get to know him, actually, he’s the Village’s ambassador to New Castletown these days. He helps me talk when the annual delegation arrives.” He looked at the dragon horn. “What little I know about Rito Village is from him."

Travelling– not so close to the Village, then, and likely somewhat of an outlier like Revali himself. If he was too enmeshed in Rito Village, then perhaps this _Kass_ was too far gone. “Has he given you anything,” Revali said, light. “Shown you any archery?” 

“Just guidance,” Link said. “Sympathy. I did a couple more Shrines for him a year back, had some painful falls,” and just as Revali was about to say something about Kass’ poor sense of geography, Link bolted up from the grass. “Wait. Your wound. Revali, I swear if you’ve broken it getting this horn–” 

“It’s adrenaline, I’ve been improving,” Revali managed to say, before Link dragged him out of the water and into the tent, stripped him down to the waist, and almost decked him when he tried to get up. After half a minute’s frantic, careful work, Link said, “what?” and Revali craned his head over to look, grimacing, and then stared. 

He’d torn the rupture— but underneath the sluggish bleeding, the black rot was now the size of Link’s palm, no longer a wide and spidering branch. It had shrunk two entire rings within a day. 

“How do you feel?” Link asked.

“Significantly less like a walking target.” Revali prodded at it. Hylia, so little pain. Surely the blackness wasn’t tied to the Gale. Surely even he wasn’t that unlucky. Some of the stunts by Dinraal had been his best, but he’d barely even flapped his wings at the first nest, hadn’t he? The Canyon battle had been his regular limit. “I suppose the dragonfire heals, then? Do me a favor and tell the big snake to come back.”

Link swatted his hand away– “don’t _touch_ ”– and bandaged up the wound in quick, nervous movements. “This doesn’t make any sense. Dragonfire’s sacred, but you’ve still been getting better way too fast. I was actually scared you were gonna bleed out back in Hyrule. How close did you come? Were you burned? Nothing– Revali?”

He was babbling, almost, and in a surge of giddy affection, Revali thought that he might have time again, just like this. Practice. Rito Village. The Gale. “Link,” he said, but no. He still couldn’t. Not yet. And with that he took Link’s wrist and drew him forwards.

“I–” Link said, freezing, but the force didn’t let up so he almost fell onto Revali, only barely catching himself before he squashed anything important, thank the Goddess for small mercies. 

It was sideways at first; slightly awkward. But then Link shifted up in a way that felt right, wrapping his arms around Revali’s neck as Revali brought him in by the waist, and as they melted into each other in relief, Revali murmured, “I didn’t know the hero could be scared of anything. You’d have to go back and face their wrath. Tell them the Rito Champion bled to death trying to shoot a dragon– at least it was interesting.” 

“No courage without fear,” he heard Link say. The arms tightened. “We still have to talk about this. You sure you’re okay?”

No flight without fall. “More than.”

“It’s not the same as Zelda’s power,” Link said, brightening, “but if you’re up to it, maybe I could get the sword and–”

Revali drew back and looked at him, because this one was special, all right. “Link,” he said. “Inspired idea though it is, you are not going to try healing me by stabbing me with that sword.”

Link nodded. “Right. No. You’d have to _steel_ yourself first,” and Revali strangled a laugh, wanting so much in that moment that his chest might have given out.

They’d been awake for long enough that the sunlight was filtering through the canvas. It was easy to pretend he didn’t want Link gasping his name, easy to pretend that they were staying in the tent because there was no use keeping shifts, the dragon had burnt everything around them and it was daytime besides. Link lay down beside him with their last few elixirs out.

“I’ll be here if you need me,” he said. “Just in case it flares again.”

And Revali lay on the bedroll, promising practice together when they woke, promising conversations about pain when they remembered. The laughter and relief had worn Link out; he was already drowsing warmly between daylight and dreams. And as Revali covered them both with a blanket, feeling less pain than anytime since he’d set off with a trembling bow– it was even easier to pretend that he didn’t want more than merely life. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> me: i wanna challenge myself as a writer  
> ch7: hi  
> me: *screams*
> 
> thanks @sarcasticmudkip again for the beta and see yall later
> 
> edit 01/10/2020: Sorry guys, I'm on a short hiatus due to personal + mental health reasons, and because the American republic won't stop collapsing for like 2 days at a time ;-; BUT i have this story completely planned out and I promise will never abandon it! thank you everyone for understanding :)


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